Business loans drive growth in bank lending

[SINGAPORE] Businesses continue to invest and expand while consumers are cutting back on borrowing, show preliminary figures released by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) yesterday.

Economists say that this divergence between corporate and consumer loans is "a positive development", and they expect the trend to continue in the months ahead.

Over the month, total domestic banking unit (DBU) loans rose 1.1 per cent to $546.6 billion at the end of September, up from August's 0.3 per cent growth.