The mortgage market continued its steady, if sedate, recovery in January.
According to the latest Reserve Bank of Australia figures, released on Friday, mortgage aggregates grew by 0.6 per cent in January and by 5.6 per cent for the 12 months to January.
Lending to investors remains the driver of the market's growth. Investor housing loan aggregates grew by 0.8 per cent in January and by 7.4 per cent for the 12 months to January.
Australian Prudential Regulation Authority statistics, also released on Friday, show the mortgage market grew by 0.5 per cent in January and by 5.9 per cent for the 12 months to January.
According to the APRA statistics, AMP Bank, ANZ, Citibank, Macquarie Bank, ME Bank and Suncorp grew at or above system.
NAB has maintained above-system growth ever since launching its "break up" campaign in 2011. But in January its loan portfolio grew by 0.4 per cent, compared with system growth of 0.6 per cent.
NAB may be showing signs of backtracking on its effort to be the lowest priced of the four major banks in the home loan market.
In an interview with
Fairfax Media, Gavin Slater, personal banking group executive at the bank, said "just to have a purely price-led strategy is dangerous," Slater says. "Price will always be important, but our experience is if you have an upset customer, they don't leave you over price."
Household deposits grew by 0.6 per cent in January - the same rate as loan portfolio growth. However, on a longer-term basis deposit growth continues to outpace mortgage growth; for the 12 months to January household deposits grew by 8.9 per cent.