Australian financial conditions have eased further following the Board’s decision to lower the cash rate in August. Reductions in the cash rate over recent months have passed through to bank funding costs and lending rates, though scheduled mortgage payments remain elevated relative to historical averages. Growth in housing prices and housing credit has picked up further, consistent with the easing in policy this year, and the ratio of household credit to household disposable incomes has stabilised (though is still around 5 percentage points lower than it was at the start of the 2022 tightening phase). Business debt ... (full story)