South Korea’s major banks saw average lending rate fall in January

This is the second consecutive month of decline.

Major banks in South Korea saw the average lending rate for home-backed loans drop to 3.66% in January.

This reportedly marks the second consecutive month of decline, reports Yonhap News Agency, based on data from the Korea Federation of Banks.

COFIX, or the Cost of Funds Index–a benchmark lending rate for mortgage loans–came to 3.66% in January. 

The COFIX rate for outstanding loans, meanwhile, came to 3.84%last month, down 0.03 percentage point from a month earlier.

COFIX is calculated based on costs of information from Nonghyup Bank, Shinhan Bank, Woori Bank, Standard Chartered Bank Korea, Hana Bank, Industrial Bank of Korea, Kookmin Bank and Citibank Korea.