Temporary loan repayment deferrals due to COVID-19, August 2021 - accessible version

Many authorised deposit-taking institutions (ADIs) have granted temporary relief to borrowers impacted by COVID-19, allowing them to defer loan repayments for a period of time. To provide greater transparency of loan repayment deferrals at the industry level, APRA is publishing the data obtained from ADIs. 

Chart 1

presents the value of loans subject to repayment deferral and its share of total loans, from March 2020 to August 2021. Note that data was not collected from March to June 2021. 

Progressive total of loans subject to deferral: $12 billion of loans were subject to deferral at 31 August 2021, representing 0.5% of total loans.

Chart 2

presents the proportion of loans subject to repayment deferral across four categories - total, housing, SME and other, for July and August 2021. It also shows the respective peaks experienced since the April 2020 reporting period.

Proportion of total loans: At 31 July 2021: Total loan deferrals – 0.3% of total loans, Housing loan deferrals – 0.4% of housing loans, SME loan deferrals – 0.1% of SME loans. At 31 August 2021: Total loan deferrals – 0.5% of total loans, Housing loan deferrals – 0.7% of housing loans, SME loan deferrals – 0.3% of SME loans. Peaks experienced since 30 April 2020: Total loan deferrals – 10.1% of total loans, Housing loan deferrals – 11.3% of housing loans, SME loan deferrals – 18.1% of SME loans.

Chart 3

presents the number of deferred loan facilities and its share of total loan facilities as at 31 August 2021.  

Number of loan facilities*: Total – 33,104 (0.2% of total facilities); Housing – 23,443 (0.5% of housing facilities); SME – 3,096 (0.2% of SME facilities).

*The number of facilities does not necessarily indicate the number of borrowers as individual facilities with more than one repayment type may be reported more than once.

Chart 4

presents loans subject to deferral to total loans across three key cohorts - loan to value ratio of greater than 90 per cent, investor loans and interest only loans, as at 31 August 2021. 

Housing loan risk profiles**

Deferred housing loans (percentage of housing loans)

• Loan to value ratio > 90 – 7%
• Interest-only – 14%
• Investor – 34%

Total housing loans (percentage of total loans)

• Loan to value ratio > 90% – 5%
• Interest-only – 14%
• Investor – 36%

**to give an indicator of potential elevated risk in loans subject to deferral this chart compares loans subject to deferral to total loans across three key cohorts - loan to value ratio of greater than 90 per cent, investor loans and interest only loans. 

Chart 5

presents the proportion of housing loans that are subject to temporary repayment deferral by state and territory, for July and August 2021.

Housing loan deferrals, share of housing loans: At 31 July 2021: NSW – 0.73%, VIC – 0.18%, ACT – 0.03%, QLD – 0.04%, SA – 0.17%, NT – 0.06%, TAS – 0.03%, WA – 0.02%. At 31 August 2021: NSW – 1.39%, VIC – 0.43%, ACT – 0.36%, QLD – 0.23%, SA – 0.23%, NT – 0.15%, TAS – 0.06%, WA – 0.05%.

Chart 6

presents the proportion of SME loans that are subject to temporary repayment deferral by state and territory, for July and August 2021.

SME loan deferrals, share of SME loans: At 31 July 2021: NSW – 0.16%, ACT– 0.01%, VIC – 0.02%, TAS – 0.01%, QLD – 0%, NT – 0%, SA – 0.01%, WA – 0%. At 31 August 2021: NSW – 0.65%, ACT– 0.50%, VIC – 0.16%, TAS – 0.08%, QLD – 0.07%, NT – 0.06%, SA – 0.05%, WA – 0.02%.

Data as at 31 August 2021. Data prior to June 2020 from the largest 20 ADIs by loan size. Data from June to September 2020 from all ADIs excluding foreign branches. Data from October 2020 to February 2021 from all ADIs with over $20m of loans subject to repayment deferral excluding foreign branches. Data from July 2021 from all ADIs with over $50m of loans subject to repayment deferral excluding foreign branches. Data is not available from March to June 2021.