New Lending Services Price Index, fourth quarter 2019 and first quarter 2020

The New Lending Services Price Index (NLSPI) is not an index of loan rates paid by consumers and businesses, but represents the change in the price of service. Prices represent the difference between annual percentage rates for new loan products and averages of yields on financial market instruments. The variables used to calculate the prices are weighted annual percentage rates for new lending services, funds advanced by product, and market rates.

New lending services include newly issued funds for personal loans, lines of credit, mortgage loans, business loans and leases. These data are combined with other data to estimate a price for new lending activity. Lending is one of the many services provided by the banking industry, and this is the first in a suite of financial service indexes to be published. This index will provide better estimates of the real output, productivity and price change of financial services in Canada.

With each release, data for the previous quarter may have been revised. The series is also subject to an annual revision with the release of second quarter data for the following reference year. The NLSPI is a monthly index that is disseminated on a quarterly basis. The index is not seasonally adjusted. Data are available at the national level only.

For a more detailed explanation of the methodology, see the NLSPI "Methodology Summary Document."

Products

Statistics Canada has launched the Producer Price Indexes Portal as part of a suite of portals for prices and price indexes. This web page provides Canadians with a single point of access to a wide variety of statistics and measures related to producer prices.

A video entitled "Producer Price Indexes" is available on the Statistics Canada Training Institute web page. It provides an introduction to Statistics Canada's Producer Price Indexes—what they are, how they are made and what they are used for.