Personal insolvencies up 0.1 per cent in March quarter
There were 7,910 new personal insolvencies in the March quarter 2018, up a slight 0.1 per cent on the same quarter in 2017, the Australian Financial Security Authority said.
By type of personal insolvency, bankruptcies fell by 1.8 per cent, debt agreements rose by 3.9 per cent, while personal insolvency agreements fell by 59.3 per cent, albeit from a relatively small base, the authority said.
Nationally, there were 3,725 debt agreements in the March quarter 2018. Debt agreements reached a record quarterly high of 1,219 in New South Wales in the March quarter 2018, it said.
Personal insolvency agreements fell to 37 in the March quarter 2018, the lowest quarterly level on record and following the first year-on-year fall since the March quarter 2016.
In the March quarter 2018, 16.1 per cent of debtors entered a business-related personal insolvency, the authority said.
Where the authority could identify a specific cause, economic conditions was the most common business-related cause, while excessive use of credit was the most common non-business-related cause.
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