South Korea's financial authorities have raised this year's household loan growth management target to about 3% from 1.5%, expanding annual growth capacity across household lending to roughly 60 trillion won from about 30 trillion won. The move comes after mortgage lending stayed below target while other loans, particularly credit used for stock investment, overshot their limits and prompted banks to tighten lending aggressively. As of Aug. 13, household loan balances excluding policy loans at KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, Woori and NH Nonghyup stood at 650.7747 trillion won, up 5.8047 trillion won from the end of last year and already above their earlier annual increase target of 4.3363 trillion won. Within that total, mortgage-related balances rose only 1.1175 trillion won to 492.1689 trillion won, leaving them 584.1 billion won below this year's mortgage growth target, while other loans climbed 4.6873 trillion won to 158.6058 trillion won, exceeding their annual target by 2.0526 trillion won. Authorities said relocation loans for reconstruction and redevelopment projects, as well as interim and balance-payment loans for new apartment move-ins, will be managed separately from the aggregate cap. Based on the revised ceiling, the five major banks' additional mortgage lending capacity could reach about 7.5551 trillion won if the higher allowance is directed to housing loans. Existing borrower-side controls, including loan-to-value and debt service ratio rules and mortgage caps by home price, remain unchanged, while capital rules for riskier mortgages are set to tighten. The policy shift is intended to reduce disruption for genuine borrowers after banks cut limits, blocked broker channels and suspended some new non-face-to-face loans once overall targets were breached. Credit-loan growth has recently cooled with stock-market corrections: balances at the five major banks stood at 109.7664 trillion won on Aug. 13, up just 13.1 billion won from end-July after monthly increases of more than 2 trillion won in both May and June. The H Bangbae complex in Seoul's Seocho District illustrates the remaining strain. Banks have allocated 300 billion won in balance-payment loan limits so far, with potential expansion to 500 billion won, but that would still average only about 167 million won per unit across 3,064 homes. Because lenders are in some cases using original sale prices alongside appraised values, loan availability can differ sharply even after the broader cap increase.