Real household consumption has been less responsive to housing wealth since the mid-2000s, and household consumption was weaker than the Bank anticipated in recent years, particularly on a per capita basis.24 However, household spending has been much stronger in the past few quarters, and recent downwards revisions to household saving estimates25 have led to a widening of the household sector’s saving-investment gap (as seen in figure 10).
These forces are being propelled by the increasing availability of ICT infrastructure, the provision of unique access points to financial services, and the growing number of digital natives. And on the demand side, “always on” customers are increasingly expecting to be able to bank with a minimum of fuss, whenever and wherever they like.