of total household debt at that time than they are now. second, the average rate of interest on personal loans is usually higher than for mortgages, and they rose much more in the late 1980s than did mortgage rates. both these series represent averages across the household sector. but experience differs markedly between households. slightly less than 30 per cent of households have an outstanding mortgage against their own house ; about 40 per cent of households have no mortgage debt on the dwelling they own. these proportions are little changed from a decade ago. based on data from the australian bureau of statistics ( abs ) and the australian taxation office, the proportion of households owning investment properties is around 8 to 10 per cent. some, though not all, of these properties are partly debt financed. taking these facts into account, and allowing for the fact that households with debt have, on average, incomes about 30 per cent higher than the average for all households, interest and principal repayments probably account for something like 20 per cent of disposable income among those households who have debt. this has most likely increased by about 6 percentage points over the past decade. in summary, a closer analysis of debt servicing requirements suggests that the commonly quoted fact that the total interest servicing cost is less than in the late - 1980s peak obscures the fact that debt servicing costs are on an upward trend - which only stands to reason given that overall debt levels are rising. further, servicing costs of those households with debt are considerably higher than indicated by the average experience across the household sector, and have risen a good deal over the past ten years. gearing ratios turning to consideration of housing leverage - that is, the ratio of housing debt to the value of housing assets - graph 4 in the speech showed that leverage had risen from about 13 per cent to about 20 per cent over the past decade. however, again this is the average across all households, including the majority of households who carry no debt at all. arguably a more relevant measure is the leverage of those households which do carry debt - namely, owner occupiers with a mortgage still outstanding, and investors. some estimation is involved here because the relevant data are not directly observable. on the assumption that the 30 per cent of households with debt against their homes also own 30 per cent of housing assets, we estimate that the ratio of debt to assets for indebted owner occupiers is about 46 per cent, up from 36 per cent ten years earlier. among investors, the

be ‘ unquestionably strong '. standards covering financial market infrastructure were also strengthened and supervisory oversight increased. central counterparties ( ccps ) and securities settlement facilities generally performed well through the gfc. ccps in particular withstood the default of lehman brothers, although the complete resolution was complicated and took some time. this resulted in increasing regulatory pressure for securities and derivatives to be cleared through ccps, making them even more systemically important. regulatory oversight increased along with this increase in importance, with attention focused on risk management and loss absorbance capability of ccps, recovery plans and resolution in the event that the ccp was unable to recover. international work in this area is ongoing, with the fsb releasing a consultation paper on ccp resolution in february. as overseer of the stability of central counterparties in australia, the reserve bank has been applying these new standards to domestically operating ccps, the most prominent ones being the asx ccps for equities and derivatives. finally, there seems to be more willingness for regulators and policymakers to take action if they see risks building. prior to the gfc there was a school of thought that because asset price bubbles could not be detected in advance, it was better to clean up after any bust, rather than lean against the cycle with policy. this was not the only view, however, and some policymakers had argued for a number of years that there were indicators that could be used to detect financial imbalances and that in some circumstances policy settings should take these imbalances into account. 1 post - gfc, there has been some swing to this latter view. there is now more acceptance of the need to take action when system - wide risks are rising. this is reflected in the increasing use of what are commonly known as macroprudential policies. as my colleagues david orsmond and fiona price note in a bulletin article in december 2016, there is no universally accepted definition of macroprudential policy. 2 they define it as ‘ the use of prudential actions to contain risks that, if realised, could have widespread implications for the financial system as a whole as well as the real economy. ’ they also note that the use of such tools has increased in a number of countries post - gfc. 3 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches in australia, we see macroprudential policy as part and parcel of the financial stability framework. as we have set out on other occasions, the essence of