Korean households saw growth of their financial assets slow sharply in 2015 from a year earlier, data showed Monday, due apparently to increased home trading amid a prolonged low-rate trend.

Local household's financial assets, including cash and bank deposits, averaged 90.87 million won ($75,400) as of March 2015, up only 0.8 percent from 90.13 million won a year ago, according to data by Statistics Korea, the Financial Supervisory Service and the Bank of Korea (BOK).

The 0.8 percent growth was far below the BOK's key interest rate that had been 2 percent or higher for the past year until March 2015.

Households' financial assets jumped 17.3 percent on-year in 2011 and 17.9 percent in 2012, but the growth rate slowed to 8.4 percent in 2013 and 2.1 percent in 2014.

Savings at banks, funds, stocks, bonds and insurance rose 1 percent to 67.4 million won on average.

The growth rate of household's savings dropped steeply from 21.2 percent in 2011 to 17.6 percent in 2012, 9.4 percent in 2013 and 3.3 percent in 2014.

The sharp drop in the growth of savings was chiefly attributable to low bank interest rates.

The BOK's key rate dropped from 3.25 percent in March 2012 to 2.75 percent at the same month of 2013, 2.50 percent in 2014 and further to 1.75 percent in March last year.

Also responsible was a rise in home transactions, which means more people used their bank savings or other financial assets to buy houses.

In 2014, home transactions in Korea soared 18.8 percent on-year to 1.19 million cases.

Household income also remained in the doldrums, crimping the growth in households' financial assets. Household income grew a mere 2.3 percent in 2015 from a year earlier. Comparable figures were 4 percent in 2014, 5.8 percent in 2013, 5.5 percent in 2012 and 6.3 percent in 2011, according to the data. (Yonhap)