The M4Lex headline will alarm some and reassure others. Both reactions are wrong. £28.5bn of a £39.1bn figure is NIOFC-driven — it reversed last month's repayment in one swing. The household and PNFC signal is modest, not explosive. Mortgage activity is the real story. Consumer credit at 9.1% and 12.5% on cards at 21.49% remains a structural concern. M4ex above GBTT's indicative 4–4.5% benchmark warrants watching.
| Series | May 2026 (revised) | Jun 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| House purchase approvals | 56,600 | 58,200 | ▲ +1,600 |
| Remortgaging approvals | 33,800 | 34,200 | ▲ +400 |
| Net mortgage borrowing (£bn) | 3.3 | 7.7 | ▲ +4.4 |
| Consumer credit net flow (£bn) | 1.7 | 1.8 | ▲ +0.1 |
| Consumer credit 12m growth (%) | 9.0 | 9.1 | ▲ +0.1pp |
| Credit card 12m growth (%) | 12.2 | 12.5 | ▲ +0.3pp |
| PNFC net finance raised (£bn) | +1.2 | −2.5 | ▼ −£3.7bn |
| SME bank loan net borrowing (£bn) | 0.1 | 0.6 | ▲ +0.5 |
| M4Lex monthly flow (£bn) | −0.1 | 39.1 | ▲ +39.2 |
| M4Lex annual growth (%) | 6.0 | 6.7 | ▲ +0.7pp |
| M4ex monthly flow (£bn) | 11.9 | 14.6 | ▲ +2.7 |
| M4ex annual growth (%) | 4.8 | 5.0 | ▲ +0.2pp |
Take the headline M4Lex number at face value and June looks like a credit explosion. £39.1bn of net lending after effectively zero in May is not a number you see often. But the composition matters enormously, and the composition here tells a very different story from a private sector suddenly roaring back to life.
£28.5bn of that £39.1bn was NIOFC-driven: pension funds, insurers and other non-bank financial corporations swung from £6.9bn of net repayment in May to £28.5bn of net borrowing in June. NIOFC flows are volatile and do not demonstrate broad-based household or business demand for credit — though they can still matter for market liquidity and financial stability. Strip the NIOFC swing out and the household and PNFC signal is far more modest: household borrowing rose to £7.9bn from £4.5bn, and PNFCs borrowed £2.7bn against £2.3bn. Both are genuine improvements, but neither constitutes a boom.
The mortgage data are more nuanced. Net borrowing jumped to £7.7bn, but gross lending edged up only slightly to £27.4bn, while repayments fell to £21.3bn. Approvals rose modestly to 58,200 and remain below their six-month average. This was a firmer month, not a surge in housing activity. The effective rate on newly drawn mortgages rose to 4.35% from 4.22%, even as the back book rate crept up to 3.96%.
Consumer credit continues its steady creep upward. Annual growth rose to 9.1%, with credit card debt growing at 12.5% year-on-year against a 21.49% effective rate. The monthly flow into card borrowing rose to £0.9bn from £0.6bn. This is not a raging acceleration, but the direction — households borrowing more on expensive revolving credit — remains uncomfortable.
PNFCs are a complicated read. The headline shows net repayment of £2.5bn, but bank-loan borrowing was positive during the month at £4.7bn. SMEs borrowed £0.6bn on net, up from £0.1bn. Neither figure is large, but the direction has shifted. The monthly net flow of M4ex rose to £14.6bn and annual growth hit 5.0% — now above GBTT's indicative 4–4.5% benchmark. That merits watching, not panicking about.
The M4Lex headline will be read, in some quarters, as evidence that credit conditions are too loose and rate cuts are premature. That reading would be wrong. The NIOFC swing — a £35bn reversal in a single month — is volatile financial-sector activity, not a signal that credit-sensitive economic activity is surging. The household and PNFC signal is improving modestly, not exploding. M4ex moving above GBTT's indicative 4–4.5% benchmark is worth noting. One month does not make a trend, but the direction of broad money growth is now gently firmer.
June does not amount to a boom. Broad money growth is firming modestly, while households continue to add to expensive unsecured debt. The NIOFC swing distorts the headline. Net mortgage borrowing jumped to £7.7bn, but gross lending barely moved, so housing activity was only modestly firmer. The SME improvement is small but genuine. The private-sector signal remains subdued.