Over the past 2 years the share of lending at loan to income multiples above 4 has increased from 19% to 26% (Chart 18). In part this reflects a lengthening of mortgage loan terms. In the past 2 years the proportion of new mortgages with terms of 30 years or more has risen to more than a third of all new mortgages. That lowers initial monthly payments on a given mortgage but means the debt hangs around for longer, in some cases beyond possible retirement ages. The Return of the Regulator  10  11  Drawing it all together we have: signs of complacency emerging in credit cards and personal loans; a risk that the past may not be a good guide to the future in used car prices; and some tentative pushing of mortgage lending standards. Within the overall picture of credit growing in line with the economy, a pocket of risk has emerged. Lenders have not entered, but they may be dicing with, the spiral of complacency. The trailers to the movie have started. The question is: which one are we going to watch? Are we to endure another re-run of Debt Strikes Back or can we instead enjoy a new – and altogether more uplifting – movie: the Return of the Regulator?
These data series R  sometimes are constructed using different base years, making comparisons of series even of the same variable problematic. Besides weak data series, there is also the problem of coping with lags in monetary data. The computation of the estimated supply of total reserves (OSR), on the day of OMO market often involves several days lag. This means that to be able to obtain OSR, where “t” is the OMO market day, the compiler must be able to project both the sources and uses of monetary base, several days prior to  2  BIS Review 45/2007  the OMO market day say OSR . The techniques for doing this are yet to be fully developed in all t-3  WAIFEM constituent countries. •  Determination of public sector borrowing requirement The primary target for OMO is the difference between the estimated supply and demand for money under equilibrium conditions. But in arriving at the ultimate target for OMO, the excess supply needs to be adjusted to accommodate public sector borrowing requirement in the period. Thus there would be need to make the problematic forecasts of government cash revenue and expenditure, including float items. In this regard some of our member countries, notably Ghana have taken considerable strides through the application of some appropriate software. •  Capacity for econometric forecasting Familiarity with the use of econometric techniques is a sine qua non for liquidity forecasting.