Smaller banks cut home credit

More small and medium-sized commercial banks are suspending mortgage loans in the fourth quarter, according to an industrial report.

Housing loan suspensions have been reported in 17 out of 32 cities, including Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Zhuhai, said the report by rong360.com, an Internet search platform for loan resources, which surveyed more than 500 banks.

A rapid increase in loans in the first half of the year resulted in a lack of loan quotas for the next half, said the report. The overdraft of credit drained the fund for mortgages in the latter half of the year, particularly the fourth quarter.

The real estate market has been showing a warming trend this year. The People's Bank of China reported that for the third quarter, the real estate outstanding loans in major financial institutions stood at 14.17 trillion yuan ($2.33 trillion) by the end of September, increasing 19 percent year-on-year. The growth rate was 4.7 percentage points higher than that of all banking loans.

So in the fourth quarter, many banks had to stop offering interest discounts for first-home loans. Interest rates for second homes have gone up 10 to 20 percent.

Of the 500 surveyed banks 6.37 percent still offer a 15 percent discount in interest rates, with 16.04 percent offering a 10 percent discount and 44.58 percent going with base interest rates. Another 16.27 percent offer interest rates above the base level and 16.75 percent of the surveyed banks said they have completely stopped lending to homebuyers.

The base loan interest rate is 6.55 percent for a loan of more than five years, according to the Peoples' Bank of China.

The grip on housing loans is taking place mostly in small and mid-sized banks. Major banks are hardly affected by the capital shortage. Wang Zhenning, chief of public relations for Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd, said ICBC has not been slowing its loans to homebuyers.

Banks were exercising tighter control over the approval of housing loans for first-time buyers, which had significantly lengthened the time spent obtaining a loan, according to a report by Homelink Real Estate Co Ltd.

Applicants who have been approved in the fourth quarter will have to wait until the beginning of 2014 to get their loans, said Zhang Xu, an analyst with Homelink.

As the market is expecting the government to stage even harsher policies to dampen the rise in housing prices, it would be natural for smaller banks to try to mitigate risks and hold back credit supply.

"Those that are quick to do so are joint-stock or foreign banks," said Zhang Dawei, an analyst with Centaline Property Agency Ltd. "It is normal for them to do so at the end of the year, when they have begun using up loan quotas."