ASB has announced cuts to their fixed rate mortgage card. But they are actually only matching ANZ's recent reductions.
We will no doubt be getting more fixed rate changes later in the day, or the week, after the dust settles on the Official Cash Rate cut fallout which will come after 2pm and the Reserve Bank's Monetary Policy Review.
But the more important changes to fixed rates are happening 'in the shadows' and away from the rate cards.
Customers with a home loan can see updated offers from their bank in their bank app. And these often offer significant discounts from the rate cards published.
Banks do this to retain their existing clients. The power of the low-friction app is strong, and it is very easy to just 'accept' the app offer, especially when it looks so much better than the rate card. Savvy price-setting psychology is being used here. These advantages make it very hard for other banks to get the opportunity to compete.
This is probably why home loan rate cards are now coalescing around rate levels for each term that are little different between institutions. The 'real action' is off-card.
So we are asking readers to help shine a light on this opaque practice. Please note actual bank-app offers in the comment stream below and we will add them to our table. This should give borrowers a stronger view of where the mortgage rate market really is.
Back to ASB, they also cut their term deposit offers Wednesday as well, largely matching ANZ, but there are some minor variances.
Almost all banks will have some flexibility in their rate offers. So the carded rates are just the start. Negotiate. How flexible they may be will depend on the strength of your financials.
One useful way to make sense of the changed home loan rates is to use our full-function mortgage calculator which is below. Term deposit rates can be assessed using this calculator.
And if you already have a fixed term mortgage that is not up for renewal at this time, our break fee calculator may help you assess your options. Break fees will be minimal in a rising market. But they become important in a falling market, like now. Don't forget, when you sign up for a fixed rate you are signing a contract. You have been given the right to break it in legislation but the bank has the right to reclaim its costs when you do so. This is NOT evidence of banks making it hard to switch (as some borrowers, and sadly some journalists seem to think).
Here is the updated snapshot of the lowest advertised fixed-term mortgage rates on offer from the key retail banks at the moment.
| Fixed, below 80% LVR | 6 mths | 1 yr | 18 mth | 2 yrs | 3 yrs | 4 yrs | 5 yrs |
| as at October 9, 2024, 10:00am | % | % | % | % | % | % | % |
| ANZ | 6.75 | 6.19 | 5.89 | 5.69 | 5.69 | 6.19 | 6.19 |
| current reader-reported rates | 6.69 | 5.59 | 5.69 | 5.59 | |||
 |
6.75 -0.10 |
6.19 -0.16 |
5.89 -0.10 |
5.69 -0.10 |
5.69 -0.10 |
5.69 | 5.69 |
| current reader-reported rates | 6.09 | ||||||
 |
6.75 | 6.19 | 5.89 | 5.79 | 5.79 | 5.69 | 5.69 |
| current reader-reported rates | 6.05 | 5.75 | |||||
 |
6.85 | 6.29 | 5.79 | 5.79 | 5.69 | 5.69 | |
| current reader-reported rates | 5.94 | 5.44 | |||||
 |
6.85 | 6.29 | 5.99 | 5.79 | 5.79 | 5.69 | 5.69 |
| current reader-reported rates | 6.75 | 6.19 | 5.89 | 5.69 | 5.69 | 5.69 | 5.69 |
| Bank of China | 6.75 | 6.25 | 5.95 | 5.75 | 5.75 | 5.65 | 5.65 |
| China Construction Bank | 6.89 | 6.45 | 5.99 | 5.99 | 5.89 | 6.40 | 6.40 |
| Co-operative Bank | 6.75 | 6.19 | 5.99 | 5.75 | 5.69 | 5.69 | 5.69 |
| Heartland Bank | 6.19 | 5.89 | 5.69 | 5.69 | |||
| ICBC | 6.69 | 6.15 | 5.85 | 5.69 | 5.69 | 5.69 | 5.69 |
 |
6.75 | 6.35 | 5.89 | 5.69 | 5.69 | 5.69 | 5.69 |
 |
6.85 | 6.29 | 6.09 | 5.79 | 5.79 | 5.69 | 5.69 |
Fixed mortgage rates
Select chart tabs
Daily swap rates
Select chart tabs
Comprehensive Mortgage Calculator
26 Comments
Circa 12 months ago, the CPI was over 7% and was looking to go higher. The RBNZ had tried to 'look through' a CPI of 4% when the OCR was 0.25% in the years before that and had to chase the bolted inflationary horse. Were they going to take the chance that they were just as wrong at 7% as they were at 4%?
Here's the wonderful thing about Financial Markets and Life in general - no one actually knows what's going to happen. We spend most of our time looking at what has happened and trying to extrapolate what's coming. But if there's one thing we do know for certain - it's that it's all easy looking back.
Agree. Their mandate is inflation (and financial stability), not saving the economy. The National government had just specifically stated that. So while it was fairly certain a while ago that inflation was on its way out, they had no inclination to gamble. If they still had full employment in their mandate it may have been different...
Hi DC, great to see you are finally adding reader reported rates into your tables. The online rates on all the banks websites are so far off what they are actually giving customers, that they are almost redundant in a lot of cases.
One only needs to hop onto reddit or the property investor fb group to see what the rates customers are actually getting - people are updating on a near daily basis at the moment, due to the massive delta between the 'bs' website rate, and the true in app/contracted rate at settlement.
It would be good if you could populate more of the true rates , so readers can get a sense of what is actually happening in the market.
I'm seeing:
anz: 5.59 1yr, 5.69 18mth, 5.59 2yr
bnz; 6.05 1yr, 5.75 18mth
kiwi; 5.94 1yr, 5.44 2yr
Who remembers when petrol stations were playing these shenanigans, before Gaspy? Relying on word of mouth that the pump price was actually 20c lower than the sign...
Then again, our brokers always got us much better than carded rates. Online banking has just made the haggling process automatic and more consistent.
This is a bank supposedly making too much profit, yet the challenger banks and Kiwibank are struggling to compete.
The idea that NZ needs more competition and NZ ownership in banking, supermarkets, etc seems flawed to me. Its hard enough for one or two companies to get any real scale. Imagine for example replacing Bunnings Warehouse with 4 smaller NZ owned hardware chains, would prices go down?
The original intention of the Central Banks was to be the Lender of Last Resort to stop economic collapse. And that was supposed to come at suitably sobering rates, if that was required. Not to be the commercial market's hand-holder and guide.
The RBNZ could just as easily look at the reductions in the retail market going on (this story) and say to themselves that their policy is working just as intended. They have left the commercial market to do the work it always should have been doing. So why do anything at all to the OCR?
Margins are massive for banks at the moment.
if we compared the swap rate for 3 year for instance the gap between the 3 year fixed rate and the swap rate is a full 1.0 percent bigger than is was last time the swap rate was at this level in April 2022 when swaps were on the march up.
Westpac in app this morning:
6mth - 6.75
1yr - 6.19
18mth - 5.89
2yr - 5.69
3yr - 5.69
4yr - 5.69
5yr - 5.69
The only change in last 10 days is 6 month dropping from 6.85 to 6.75. Note this is for a $240k~ balance and strong financials, IE would think this is as discounted as it gets in app currently. Would think/hope they will catch up to the rest this week, PITA moving it otherwise...
$240k is classified as a small loan on the books, so you won't get the sharpest offered in app. You could trying pushing with a real person but likely not going to get much better given the size of the loan.
Generally I am seeing ~$500k having some movement and loans around ~$1mil are getting best results.
There was a report from interest.co.nz recently that the prior 1 or 2 years has seen the most activity of people hopping banks, and it feels a bit like the job market, where if you stay in a role (bank) you get a 0.25 cash back and ok rate, but if you jump roles (bank) you get 0.9 cash back and the most aggressive rates... similar you may get a 2-3% increase in salary at current job, but jump and get 10-20% pay increase..
Loyalty is long gone & not rewarded, alongside company super schemes that are all but gone these days.
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.