China’s Citic Bank has halted new consumer loans in Beijing for individuals pledging their property as collateral, Bloomberg reported by quoting the people familiar with the matter. 

Citic Bank decided to halt the consumer loans for its own internal business reasons, rather than under prompting from Chinese regulators, according to the people. 

This is important asit may suggest Citic’s own perspective on the domestic housing market towards a less positive outlook. 

The chart below shows AUD/USD moving in tandemwith Shanghai stocks property index most of the time for the past six months; both started rallies since mid of December last year and peaked at the end of January this year. 

AUD/USD (Orange line); Shanghai stocks property index (white line)

Any prediction on less activities in Chinese housing market, if proved to be accurate, may add downward pressures on Aussie.