South Korea's household debt jumped 9 percent in July from a year earlier, a lawmaker said Tuesday, despite the government's tightened lending rules.
The country's overall household debt came to 1,439 trillion won ($1.27 trillion) as of end-July, said Chae Yi-bai, a lawmaker of the opposition People's Party, citing the Korea Credit Information Services, the public agency responsible for managing the country's credit information.
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(Yonhap) |
He said household loans extended by credit card firms and other non-banking companies rose sharply, worsening the quality of household debt.
The loans extended by the secondary financial firms could pose challenges in case of a rate hike as the secondary financial firms demand higher interest rates than those of banks.
In August, the Bank of Korea kept its policy rate at an all-time low of 1.25 percent, though it has said that it may take a monetary tightening stance if the economy shows signs of a robust recovery, a comment widely seen as signaling a rate hike by the central bank over the long haul. (Yonhap)
