Singapore Bank Lending Up 5.3%

Singapore’s total loans and advances including bills financing of Domestic Banking Units grew 5.36% year-on-year to a predicted 661.6 billion Singapore dollars (about US$500 billion) in March, according to data released by the Monetary Authority of Singapore on Monday.It marked the 18th straight month for DBUs to achieve positive year-on-year growth in total loans and advances, Xinhua reported. Meanwhile, the DBU’s total loans and advances went up 1.64% month-on-month in March. The growth rate is larger than that of 0.05% for February. In March, Singaporean DBU’s loans to businesses grew 5.64% year-on-year and 2.69% month-on-month, to S$397.83 billion. In a breakdown, the loans to building and construction reached S$122.44 billion, declining 0.43% year-on-year and accounting for about 30.78% of the total business loans. DBU’s consumer loans in March reached S$263.77 billion, up 4.93% year-on-year and 0.09% month-on-month.