Disentangling the supply and demand factors of household credit in Malaysia: evidence from the credit register

This paper isolates the demand and supply factors of credit extension. We construct a new dataset that combines loan application information from the credit register with individuals' income and banks' balance sheet for the period 2014-2016. Using this dataset, we verify the importance of banks' balance sheet (supply factor) and individuals' income (demand factor) in determining housing and car loan approval empirically. We have two main findings. First, we find that banks' balance sheet matters. Banks with a higher funding ratio, higher capital ratio, and lower liquidity ratio are more likely to approve a housing and car loan. Among the supply factors, the funding ratio of the banks is the strongest determinant of household lending. Second, we find that the supply factors have a greater impact on household loan approval than the demand factor. Specifically, the effect of banks' funding ratio on loan approval is twice the size of income. Therefore, the declining funding ratio due to higher net external outflows may potentially explain the moderation in aggregate household loan approval growth in 2014-2016. The findings fill a research gap for the Malaysian economy and could serve to inform policies, especially in relation to the discussion on the role of banks' balance sheet in lending activities.