Aussie households boost savings buffer by $10 billion
Kaaren Morrissey |
Australian households have been socking away money with their banks, despite paying more to service loans and forking out extra for day-to-day essentials.
Deposits held by households totalled more than $1.4 trillion in November, data from the banking regulator shows.
That represents a gain of 0.7 per cent or $10.5 billion since October and a jump of 7.5 per cent from a year ago.
The numbers published by APRA reflect the “substantial savings buffers” highlighted by the central bank in its last statement on monetary policy in early November.
The trend began during the pandemic when locked-down households began tipping money into their mortgages, offset and savings accounts, as opportunities to go out and spend or travel were curtailed.
Reserve Bank of Australia governor Michele Bullock has said households, overall, are in a “pretty good position” despite the “noise” around interest rate rises and living costs.
“Their balance sheets are pretty good,” she told a conference in Hong Kong in late November.
RateCity research director Sally Tindall said the monthly increase in household deposits led to another overall record high.
“This data illustrates just how determined people are to keep a hold of their cash, ready for a rainy day,” she said in a statement.
“Australians managed to stash more than $10 billion extra in the bank in November alone.
“While the RBA is ultimately looking for evidence of people dipping into their savings, this is a positive sign that Australians are putting a priority on building themselves healthy buffers.”
But not everyone is in the same position, as the Australian Council of Social Services has noted.
“There are more than three million people living in poverty in Australia,” CEO Cassandra Goldie said recently.
“More than 5.3 million said they could not afford a Christmas meal.”
The deposits from households captured by the APRA data include term deposits, transaction accounts, mortgage offset accounts and savings accounts.
AAP
