OCBC Bank’s new mortgage sales for 2013 are expected to fall by up to 30 percent due to the recent property cooling measures. Nevertheless its mortgage book will not be significantly affected, said Chief Operating Officer Ching Wei Hong at the bank’s Q4 2012 results briefing and reported by The Business Times.
This is due to the fact that OCBC boosted its home loan sales over the last few years. As a result, a drop in new mortgage sales will be cushioned by the number of loans sold in 2010 and 2011.
In 2012, OCBC’s mortgage lending rose 18 percent (S$5.7 billion) to S$37.8 billion, with Singapore accounting for about 80 percent of that figure. Mortgages made up 26 percent of OCBC’s overall loan book of S$144 billion.
“We’ve built up a very good size and do not expect loans to taper off significantly,” Ching noted.
“In terms of sales, we do expect a sharper fall in new loan bookings, we estimate in the range of 20 percent to 30 percent reduction in bookings.”
Comparatively, OCBC’s bigger rival DBS Bank expects a larger drop in its mortgage lending this year. DBS chief Piyush Gupta had stated that the bank’s loan growth in Singapore could halve this year.
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor of PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
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