Household borrowing slows down

Figures released by the Bank of Botswana (BoB) indicate that annual credit growth in the household sector more than halved last year, decelerating   from 24.2 percent in 2013 to 9.4 percent. 

This was attributable to a significant decrease in mortgage lending growth from 40.1 percent to 18.4 percent and a steep fall in the growth of personal loans from 19.6 percent to 5.3 percent between 2013 and 2014.  While the weakening personal loans uptake reflects slower growth in real incomes, the slow down in mortgage lending appears to be consistent with other indications that the market for residential property is weakening particularly for the high-value properties.