Household credit, which refers to debts owed by households to banks and other lenders in addition to the purchase on credit, came to 1,886.4 trillion won (1.41 trillion U.S. dollars) at the end of December, up 8.0 trillion won (6 billion dollars) from three months earlier, according to the Bank of Korea.
It kept a record-breaking trend for the second straight quarter on the back of the offer of government-backed mortgage loans to prop up the faltering housing market.
The central bank had left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 3.50 percent since January last year, after lifting it by 3 percentage points for the past one and a half years.
Excluding the purchase on credit, household debt gained 6.5 trillion won (4.9 billion dollars) from three months earlier to reach a new high of 1,768.3 trillion won (1.32 trillion dollars) at the end of December.
Mortgage loans to households soared 15.2 trillion won (11.4 billion dollars) to hit a fresh high of 1,064.3 trillion won (795.4 billion dollars), but other loans such as credit loans tumbled 8.7 trillion won (6.5 billion dollars) in the October-December quarter.
The purchase on credit added 1.5 trillion won (1.1 billion dollars) in the cited quarter, continuing to expand for the second successive quarter.
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