The market is focusing on the latest data of outstanding loans to households as of December 2015, to be released by the Bank of Korea on Wednesday.
The nation’s combined household debt set an all-time high of 1.16 quadrillion won ($943 billion) as of September 2015, and is estimated to have reached a fresh record during the fourth quarter of last year.
Some analysts are interested in seeing whether household debt has surpassed the 1.2-quadrillion won mark on the back of active, last-ditch bank mortgages issued to consumers in the October-December period.
Household debt has continued to surge -- 964 trillion won at the end of 2012, 1.01 quadrillion won at the end of 2013 and 1.08 quadrillion won at the end of 2014.
BOK officials have expressed concerns about the snowballing debt. This is paradoxical as the central bank has fueled its growth by continuously lowering the benchmark interest rate between 2014 and 2015 -- from 2.5 percent to the record-low of 1.5 percent.
Despite the seriousness, one of the seven rate-setters of the BOK’s Monetary Policy Committee sought one more cut during the committee’s monthly gathering last week. And more and more analysts are predicting a cut to 1.25 percent during the next meeting, slated for March 10.
Supporters of a rate cut once again say that recently enhanced lending regulations, set by the Financial Supervisory Service, could offset a further monetary easing. They claim the stimulus drive to induce active consumer spending is more urgent for the nation’s economy.
But it is hard to agree with the rate cut cohorts when we contemplate the critical ratio of household debt to national disposable income, which recently surged to 164.2 percent. South Korea was ranked ninth in the ratio among 27 members of the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation.
The figure indicates that local consumers on average have less capacity to spend due to their heavy borrowings. The government had eased the mortgage rules to vitalize the real estate market, and the households -- which were attracted to low bank rates -- are saddled with the burden of huge interest payment on housing-collateralized loans.
In early 2014, President Park Geun-hye vowed to curb household debt gradually to bring the debt-to-disposal income ratio down 5 percentage points, compared to the 2014 figure by 2017. On the contrary, the undesirable ratio has steadily increased over the past two years.
A worrisome point is that the government or BOK might try to soothe the public by highlighting possibly relaxed pace in the household loan growth thanks to the financial regulator-led tough mortgage guidelines this year.
Worries are particularly aggravating ahead of the April 13 general elections, as the government and ruling Saenuri Party might not want a drop in apartment prices, which spiked last year, buoyed by rate cuts. Property prices have been picked as one of the few significant factors to appeal voters.
Any failure or delay in implementing an appropriate monetary policy could impair the nation’s GDP and growth potential, and the BOK should be held accountable for playing a key role in pumping up household debt.
Ultimately, Korea has no choice but to raise interest rates amid the U.S. Federal Reserve’s monetary tightening. So the urgent task of the government and central bank should be to soft land the gross debt through preemptive, systematic steps.
Belated hikes after tolerating the situation for more months could invite en masse insolvency of households: it would be difficult for local policymakers to shun rapid hikes when the base rate hikes in the U.S. go on.
