Lending secured on housing is by far households' most important in terms of the overall amount of debt that they hold. Our mortgage approvals data show how many new loans banks have approved and that could be drawn, so capture the early stages of taking out secured lending. Approvals are broken down into those for a house purchase, remortgaging and other (which includes increasing the size of a mortgage).
The net flow of secured credit will depend on how much secured lending is extended by banks in the month and how much is repaid by households. The Bank publishes both the gross and net flows.
Households can also take out consumer credit, which comes in a variety of forms. The Bank's statistics can split this borrowing into that done on credit cards, and other forms (including car finance). This chart shows how much more of these types of credit households take on: a positive net flow means that households are increasing their consumer credit holdings; a negative flow shows that, overall, they are repaying credit.
A common way to assess how quickly households are taking on consumer credit is to look at the annual growth rate, as shown here for total consumer credit and its components.