Australian bank regulator warns against too many investor property loans

Australia's banking regulator has called for a slowing of loans to property investors who pushing up home values in the nation's capitals.

Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) chairman Wayne Byres said on Thursday that he hoped investor lending growth would slow in coming months.

He said APRA had urged banks in December not to increase investor loans faster than 10 percent annually and demanded higher deposit requirements.

APRA was concerned that in January property investor credit growth reached a seven-year high of 10.1 percent.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, investor approvals for home loans were 19.1 percent for the year.

Byres told The Australian newspaper that the focus should be on future intentions on bank lenders.

"The reported growth rates are backward looking, whereas we are focused on lenders' plans for 2015," he said.

"In many cases, people are drawing down on loans where the approval may have been granted before our letter (in early December) was issued.

"We'd obviously like to see things slowing down and we'd hope to see that in the future. But what is appearing in the numbers at this point in many cases are lending decisions and volumes that were in the pipeline before we issued our letter." Endi