"I guess we were slightly surprised by it (the rise in household lending). I guess people still need to spend to live," says KPMG partner John Kensington.
Driving the increase in household lending, BNZ's lending rose $311 million, ANZ Bank's rose $134 million, Westpac's $67 million and Kiwibank's $244 million, KPMG says.
It's possible there may be some classification issues behind the numbers such as loans to small businesses secured against housing being classified as retail mortgages, Kensington says.
Nevertheless, "this is positive news for the housing sector with the Real Estate Institute reporting that there were 5,848 house sales in March 2011 (an increase of 29.9% from February)," KPMG says.
"Much of the increase was in Auckland; despite this, there still appears to be uncertainty regarding the market and prices, on average, are stable."
KPMG's survey shows deposits from bank customers rose $1.7 billion in the three three months ended March, taking the increase in deposits for the year ended March to $11.2 billion.
Some of the increase will reflect depositors switching out of finance company debentures into bank deposits and many of those who received refunds under the government's retail deposit guarantee scheme when their finance companies failed banking the proceeds.
The ratio of gross impaired assets to impaired asset expense increased in the March quarter, largely because of provisions established following the February 22 earthquake in Christchurch.
The major impacts were on Westpac, who provided net increases of $56 million, and Kiwibank, who provided $25 million in relation to the earthquakes, KPMG says. Further provisions are possible as the assessment of the impact of the earthquakes continues, it says.
Banks' average interest margin was flat at 2.16% in the March quarter compared with the December quarter and down from 2.28% in the September 2010 quarter, although the latter was inflated by ANZ restating various fee and interest amounts in the quarter which related to the full year ended September.
Excluding the ANZ restatement, "interest margins across the sector have improved since September , albeit they are down marginally from December," KPMG says. Likewise, net profits are down compared with the December quarter but are in line with September 2010.
