Mortgage borrowers continued to build their financial buffers towards the end of last year, with payments into offset and redraw accounts growing in the December quarter. According to the latest Reserve Bank Statement on Monetary Policy, payments into offsets and redraws in 2022 were worth around A$30 billion, with growth throughout most of the year. The rate of growth has slowed, however. Offset and redraw deposits in 2020 and 2021 were worth more than $40 billion a year. The RBA said the stock of savings in these accounts is now around $120 billion, which is equivalent to around 7.7 per cent of annual household income. Total additional savings accumulated by households since the beginning of the pandemic are estimated to be close to $300 billion, which is equivalent to around 20 per cent of annual disposable income. The RBA said higher income borrowers hold a greater share of these buffers but lower income borrowers in aggregate continued to contribute to their offsets and redraw accounts in 2022. It said it expects that higher interest rates and cost of living pressures would force borrowers to draw on their savings to service their mortgage.  But on the current evidence borrowers have not reached that point yet.