Over the 1990s and the first half of the 2000s, household debt grew strongly in response to
lower nominal interest rates and innovation in the financial system. Since the mid 2000s, the
pace of growth in borrowing has slowed significantly. Using household-level data, this article
confirms that this slowing has occurred across all age groups. Following the global downturn
and the decline in interest rates over 2008/09, there was also a sharp increase in the number of
households reporting that they were ahead of schedule in their home loan repayments or paying
off their credit card balance each month.