SEOUL, July 11 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's household debt growth slowed down in the first half of this year on tightened loan standard, central bank data showed Wednesday.
Debts owed by households to all financial institutions, including banks, insurers, savings banks, mutual credits and community cooperatives, increased 33.6 trillion won (30 billion U.S. dollars) in the January-June period, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).
It was down from a growth of 40.2 trillion won (35.9 billion U.S. dollars) in the same period of last year.
Households moved to non-bank institutions as banks tightened loan standard in the second half of last year.
However, they moved again to banks in the first half of this year as the government applied tightened loan standard to non-bank institutions.
Household loan by banks grew 25 trillion won (22.3 billion U.S. dollars) during the January-June period, while those by non-bank institutions rose 8.7 trillion won (7.8 billion U.S. dollars).
Despite the falling pace, household debts continued to rise amid the near-record-low policy rate. The BOK refrained from altering its benchmark rate of 1.50 percent since the bank raised it to the current level in November 2017.
The BOK's target rate fell below the U.S. Federal Reserve's benchmark rate, which was lifted to a range of 1.75-2.00 percent in June.
