The report of Australian Bureau of Statistics has alleged that during the month of March and April 2012, number of Australian citizens who successfully enrolled for permanent financial package increased by 0.6%. This figure clearly states that Australian people are highly keen towards taking out personal loans to meet their everyday needs.
As per the ABS report, the value of overall personal loan commitment also grew by 0.6% in seasonally based adjusted terms. This figure is very surprising as it demonstrates that Australian citizens are very careful towards managing their money. The number of Aussies successfully securing personal loan agreements grew by more than 1.1% as per seasonally based adjusted terms during March 2012, as compared to previous month. Fixed arrangements went 1% higher while revolving credit commitments boosted by over 1.2 per cent.
Penny Wong, the Commonwealth Minister for Finance and Deregulation recently admitted that eurozone crisis has significantly scared Australians; thereby forcing them to maintain some surplus cash into their savings account. However, it is also observed that lot of Australians prefer to avail some extra credit from their respective banks. The constantly rising cost of living is also one of the reasons behind this. In recent months, most of the Aussies have seen their individual disposable income getting a hit and it is very hard for them to spend their savings on luxury items.
The uncertainty related with interest rates has also created some dilemma in the mind of borrowers as Reserve Bank of Australia is reluctant to decrease national cash rate till May. Though national rate is decreased by 50 points as compared to last month figures of 4.25 per cent, most of the banks haven't executed those in their lending process.
However, it is also observed that most of the major financial lenders of Australia preferred to set their own interest rates rather than waiting for RBA guidelines to come.
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