The Korea Herald

소아쌤

Banks urged to mitigate risks from household lending

By a2017001

Published : June 27, 2017 - 13:00

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Financial authorities have urged banks to take measures to mitigate risks from household lending, before tightening rules on home lending early next month, an official said Tuesday.

At a meeting with heads of some 20 retail banks on Monday, Financial Supervisory Service Governor Zhin Woong-seob called for them to improve their risk and compliance management, according to an FSS official who attended the meeting.

(Yonhap) (Yonhap)

Effective next Monday, the lending ceiling for homes located in areas designated by the government will be lowered from 70 percent to 60 percent of the property's value. The debt-to-income ratio will also be lowered to 50 percent from 60 percent.

The measures represented the government's latest efforts to fight real estate prices amid a mountain of household debt, which exceeded 1,300 trillion won ($1,143 billion) at the end of March.

Snowballing household debt has threatened to choke off private consumption, although there is no immediate sign of default risks.

The government has said it would consider drawing up more measures if the property market shows no sign of cooling down.

Still, the FSS official said the pace of household lending growth has been slowing down.

The average daily mortgage lending by banks fell to 250 billion won this month, compared with 330 billion won in May, according to FSS data. (Yonhap)