As the financial authorities eased the cap on household loans, the target for total household loan growth this year at the five major banks (KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, Woori, NH NongHyup) appears to have increased by about 60%.
According to the financial sector on the 30th, due to the financial authorities' deregulation, the target for total household loan growth at the five major banks rose from the previous 434 billion won to about 698 billion won.
In effect, the combined target for the five banks increased by about 264 billion won. In addition, some items, such as group loans, are excluded when calculating performance against the total cap.
The five major banks are said to have discussed the new targets with the authorities last week and were tentatively notified of each bank's increased figure. Some banks that have already exceeded their previous targets were given penalties and reportedly assigned relatively smaller additional targets.
The problem is that the accumulated increase in household loans so far is considerable, meaning that even with the upwardly adjusted targets, the additional room remains small.
According to the financial sector, as of the 27th, the outstanding loan balance of household loans excluding policy loans at the five major banks was 651.6377 trillion won, up 6.6677 trillion won from the end of last year (644.97 trillion won).
The gap with the new growth target (about 6.98 trillion won) is only a little over 300 billion won. Even after excluding some items such as group loans, it means there is not much additional room that can be allocated to general household loans.