Lending benchmarks 'no cap' on credit growth

Applying benchmarks on investor lending for banks was "not about restraining credit growth and we don't think it will be particularly effective," Wayne Byres, chair of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, said on Wednesday night.

Speaking before the Senate's economics committee, Byres said: "With the caveat we never call the thing macroprudential ... we are just trying make sure banks continue to lend on a sound basis.

"We said to people 'you can continue to do what you do, but we are very alert to signs of acceleration'."

Byres said "we are focussed on serviceability measures, most ADIs adhere to them ... we want banks to avoid lending on an implicit assumption that interest rates will be low."

He observed that since December, when APRA advised banks of the new scrutiny and emphasised the need to maintain sound lending standards in residential mortgage lending, "we have not really seen any impact."

This was done against a backdrop of historically low interest rates, high household debt, subdued income growth and rising unemployment, significant house price growth, and strong competitive pressures, Byres observed.

Earlier, though, in his opening remarks to the committee, Byres had said: "For the sake of clarity, let me conclude on this topic by stressing our objective is not to target a particular level of house prices. That is not a task that is within our mandate.

"Our goal is more modest - to make sure that, however the housing market evolves, housing finance remains sensibly founded on sound lending standards."