‘‘There is a credit crunch going on, it is getting harder and harder to access funding.’’

shift in mindset for the average New Zealander, he said.

‘‘There is a strange phenomenon in New Zealand in that people think that borrowing from a bank is inherently safer. But, of course, once you have borrowed the money you have borrowed the money, and it doesn’t matter who you have borrowed it from,’’ Stubbs said.

The New Zealand market was weighted towards the four big banks controlling an outsized portion of household debt, he said.

But as the capital in KiwiSaver grew and consumers chased higher yields, non-bank lenders would continue to take more of the market share, Stubbs said.

Gareth Kiernan, chief forecaster at Infometrics, said something similar was seen in the loan market when the Reserve Bank first introduced the LVRs in 2013, as well as 2015 and 2016.

‘‘Obviously the banks are watched more closely than the nonbank lenders. But having said that the Reserve Bank does keep a very close eye on the non-bank lenders, certainly a lot more than 15 years ago,’’ Kiernan said.