Background
This Frontier Statistics presents data on Irish household loan liabilities with domestic counterparts within Quarterly Financial Accounts (QFA) by lender and loan type. This includes a further breakdown of mortgage loans into home loans and buy-to-let. Thereby, this data enhances household analysis within the official series of QFA, applying information on loans by lender and loan purpose from the Central Credit Register (CCR) and Credit and Banking Statistics on household loan liabilities by counterpart sector data available in QFA.
This data is published for the first time as a Frontier Statistics release, indicating that the methods and data within are subject to revision. This data will be updated on a quarterly basis. You can learn more about the Frontier Statistics project on the What Are Frontier Statistics webpage.
Coverage and Scope
Data on household debt in this Frontier Statistics is subject to the same coverage and scope as in QFA. QFA covers household debt by counterpart sector, i.e. it shows the loans that households borrow from other institutional sectors. QFA captures aggregates for the sectors only, and breaks down loans only by original maturity. QFA includes a breakdown of household loan liabilities into resident and non-resident counterparts. This frontier statistics considers only the loan liabilities of Irish households with domestic counterpart sectors.
The CCR provides granularity on loans to individuals, and information on the types of lenders and loans, for details visit Central Credit Register website. This publication groups the lenders in the CCR into resident banks and OFI lenders (other financial institutions) as well as government, to align with the QFA counterpart sectors.
Data Checks and Revisions
As part of the Frontier Statistics series, the Household Debt publication will undergo continuous revisions each quarter. The data and methodology are subject to change as CCR and QFA data are subject to change. The analysis will be repeated each quarter to ensure the most timely data is included.
Data quality checks are carried out by comparing CCR data with other Central Bank of Ireland Official Statistics data sets such as credit and banking statistics, including Balance Sheet Items Statistics (BSI).
Definitions
Quarterly Financial Accounts (QFA):
The Quarterly Financial Accounts (QFA) present a complete and consistent set of quarterly financial data for all sectors of the Irish economy. They provide comprehensive information on the financial activities and balance sheet of households, non-financial corporations, financial corporations, government and the rest of the world, forming an integral part of Ireland’s system of national accounts.
Central Credit Register (CCR): A database of loans of €500 or more borrowed by a person living in the Irish State at the time of applying for the loan, or borrowed via a loan agreement/application, which is governed by Irish law. The CCR was set up in 2013 by the Central Bank of Ireland under the Credit Reporting Act 2013 (as amended). Lenders submit information on existing loans and loan applications to the CCR.
Balance Sheet Items (BSI): BSI statistics collects detailed information on balance sheet of the monetary financial institutions (MFI) sector. BSI includes data on lending of deposit taking corporations, i.e. credit institutions and credit unions resident in Ireland, by counterpart sector, including the household sector according to the QFA definition. It breaks down the loans granted to households by purpose of the loan into credit for consumption, lending for house purchase and other loans.
Individual Household: The CCR collects information on individual households who have made a credit application, have made a credit agreement or area guarantor. Individual households may also borrow for business purposes without being considered a company but allocated to the household sector to align with the definition of households in QFA.
Lender: The CCR collects data from Credit Information Providers (Lenders). Lenders are usually broken down into banks and non-banks. The latter comprises of OFIs and government within the release.
Bank: Banks in this dataset refers to deposit taking corporations (ESA 2010 S122) resident in Ireland, including Credit Institutions and Credit Unions. The shares of loans accounted for by mortgages and other loans within this frontier statistics release are consistent with the equivalent BSI shares for this subsector of MFIs.
OFI: Other financial institutions (OFI) refers to ESA 2010 sectors S125, S126 and S127. This includes entities such as financial vehicle corporations engaged in securitisation transactions (FVCs), security and derivative dealers, financial corporations engaged in lending, specialised financial corporations, as well as captive financial institutions. The share of OFI loans accounted for by mortgages and other loans are approximated by using the share of loans by ‘non-banks’ to households by purpose within the CCR data.
Government: The government sector refers to ESA 2010 sector S13. This includes lending undertaken by any entity identified as being state controlled and loans of local authorities, as well as other state bodies and agencies.
Mortgage Loans: this is an aggregate of home loans and buy-to-let loans within the release.
Buy-to-Let Loans: Buy-to-let loans are loans taken to buy a property intended to rent out rather than to live in.
Home Loans: A home loan mortgage is a loan given by an entity for the purchase of a residence. To apportion the mortgage lending totals into Home Loans and Buy to Let, the BSI total lending for house purchase (Loans to Irish Households Table A.5.1) was split using the ratio of Home Loans to Buy to Let as they appear in the CCR.
Other Loans to Households: Loans taken by households for purpose other than for home loans and buy-to-let.