Financial regulators are inching toward accolades for the effectiveness of the second round of macroprudential policy imposed on the Australian banking sector earlier this year."The share of new interest-only housing loans declined sharply this year as lenders have responded to the limit on such new lending set by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority," the Reserve Bank of Australia stated on Friday in its quarterly Statement on Monetary Policy.    APRA set a cap of 30 per cent on interest-only loans as a share of all housing loans, a constraint observed by all big banks over the September 2017 quarter - including Westpac, the most aggressive funder of interest-only loans last year.Banks "have reported that some existing borrowers are continuing to switch from interest-only to principal-and-interest loans in response to the interest rate differential that now exists between these loan products," the RBA noted.While "housing credit growth has eased a little, and the profile of new lending has shifted away from… riskier types of lending," only half the job is done, on the RBA's telling."Household debt remains high, however, and continues to increase faster than household income," it said in the SOMP.In a summary of its take on housing prices, the RBA wrote that "conditions in the established housing market have eased noticeably in Sydney, but have remained relatively strong in Melbourne. Housing prices are little changed recently in Brisbane and Perth. "Growth in rents is below average in most cities, while in Perth rents continue to fall and vacancy rates are rising."