A sharp jump in commercial finance commitments is an encouraging sign for the economy, even though it may turn out to be a flash in the pan.

Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday showed the value of commercial lending commitments jumped by $5.187 billion or 20.5 per cent, in seasonally adjusted terms, to a five-month high of $30.498 billion in March.

Within the total, approvals for fixed loans were $4.608 billion or 28.0 per cent higher at $21.080 billion, while revolving credit limit approvals were up by $580 million or 6.6 per cent at $9.417 billion.

The figures offer some encouragement as far as the economy is concerned.

At the very least, demand for credit by businesses is not as weak as it appeared when the February figures were released.

However, the strong rise in March could be a factor of the volatility typical in this data series.

In particular, there was a sizeable fall in February, when total commercial loan commitments fell by $4.225 billion or 14.3 per cent.

The average for February and March was actually lower than the previous two months to the tune of $1.2 billion per month, while the trend measure calculated by the ABS fell in March for the fifteenth consecutive month.

But a rise is better than a fall at the moment.

The figures also showed personal finance commitment down by $140 million or 2.2 per cent at $6.284 billion in March while lending for housing, including alternations and additions, was up by $1.077 billion or 7.3 per cent at $16.222 billion, echoing housing finance data released on Tuesday.

The big picture shows the slump in lending that was at its steepest early last year is bottoming out, consistent with the view there is a good chance that the steepest declines in economic activity are behind us.

AAP