Australia’s private sector credit increased by 0.5% month-on-month in January 2026, below market expectations of a 0.7% rise and down from the 0.8% gain recorded in December. This was the slowest pace of monthly growth since March, with a broad-based easing across key segments: housing credit growth moderated to 0.6% from 0.7%, business credit slowed to 0.5% from 1.0%, and personal credit growth softened to 0.2% from 0.5%.
The deceleration likely reflects persistently high borrowing costs and cautious lending standards, both of which continued to dampen loan demand from households and businesses. On a year-on-year basis, however, private sector credit was up 7.7%, unchanged from the previous month and still the strongest annual growth rate in five years.
