South Korean home-backed loans extended by major local banks saw the sharpest increase in 2015 in five years, surging by over 60 trillion won ($50 billion) on-year due to a rise in housing transactions and a spike in home rental fees, industry data showed Thursday.

According to data by six major banks, including KB Kookmin Bank and Shinhan Bank, outstanding home-backed loans from the banks grew by 60.4 trillion won last year from a year earlier, the biggest net increase since 2011.

The amount includes the banks’ home-backed loans totaling 349.5 trillion won and 27.8 trillion won worth of bank loans was sold to the state-run Korea Housing-Finance Corp. under a government program which was designed to encourage households to switch from short-term floating-rate housing loans, often with maturities of three years or less, to longer-term fixed-rate mortgages.

Experts said that the soaring prices of jeonse, a uniquely Korean home rental system in which tenants pay a lump sum deposit to the landlord and get it back upon moving out, pushed households to buy their own home.

Jeonse apartment prices climbed 6.11 percent across the country, higher than the 4.36 percent in 2014.

The country’s benchmark interest rate, which has stood at a record low of 1.5 percent since June last year, also tempted them to seek bank loans.

“Last year, home prices climbed Mortgage loans see biggest increase since 2011 both in metropolitan areas and nonmetropolitan areas,” a KB Kookmin Bank official said.

The average sale price of apartment properties in the country increased 5.06 percent on-year in 2015, more than double the 2.43 percent a year earlier.

Market insiders, however, expect that the upward trend of home-backed loans will be discontinued this year as the U.S. Federal Reserve started raising interest rates and Korean finance authorities are calling on banks to strengthen risk management against raising the loans.

Major domestic banks are mapping out their business plans to focus on risk management by cutting their household lending goals as much as 50 percent lower than last year.

By Park Han-na (hnpark@heraldcorp.com)