In contrast, vehicle loan arrears increased to 5.8%, sitting 6% higher year\u2011on\u2011year, while personal loan arrears climbed to 9.8%. By comparison, \u201cretail energy arrears fell to 4.7%\u201d and telco arrears improved for a fifth straight month, easing pressure on some household budgets.<\/p>\n
Business demand stabilises as liquidations spike<\/p>\n
Business credit demand \u201cedged slightly higher, rising 0.7% year\u2011on\u2011year\u201d, led by hospitality (+38%), education and training (+17%) and retail trade (+13%).\u00a0<\/p>\n
But rising company failures show the recovery is far from complete. Centrix reports company liquidations are now at \u201ctheir highest level since 2010\u201d, with the sharpest increases in hospitality (+50%), retail trade (+34%) and transport (+27%).<\/p>\n
Construction, manufacturing, and property\/rental also recorded more liquidations, even as defaults and average credit scores improved in some areas. Agriculture was a notable bright spot, with liquidations down 11% year\u2011on\u2011year and stronger credit demand pointing to improving financial health.<\/p>\n
For Kiwi mortgage advisers, the data underline the need to segment client books carefully in early 2026 \u2013 distinguishing households using lower rates to get ahead from those showing early arrears pressure, and watching SME\u2011heavy sectors where rising business failures could quickly spill over into personal financial stress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In contrast, vehicle loan arrears increased to 5.8%, sitting 6% higher year\u2011on\u2011year, while personal loan arrears climbed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,185651,185652,46,39783],"class_list":["post-451340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-centrix","tag-credit-demand","tag-economy","tag-mortgage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}