Kiwibank has launched a "limited time special" six-month, fixed-term home loan interest rate of 4.79%, which is the lowest advertised, or carded, rate the bank has offered in its 11-year history.
The rate shaves 46 basis points off Kiwibank's previous six-month rate and is the lowest advertised rate for a six-month time period advertised by a bank.
The next lowest six-month rate on offer is SBS Bank's 5.10%.
See all advertised bank home loan rates here.
"It is a very competitive home loan market at the moment and the Kiwibank offer may well be the lowest rate offered by any bank for many decades," Kiwibank CEO Paul Brock said.
The offer isn't restricted to new customers, has no minimum lending requirement and no debt/equity restrictions.
It's the second aggressive mortgage move by a major bank so far this week after Westpac launched market leading one, three and five-year fixed-term mortgage rates on Monday.
The Westpac rates, however, are aimed at winning customers' off other banks, require borrowers to have a deposit of at least 20%, and to take out new lending of at least NZ$100,000.
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12 Comments
I think Roger is generally correct.
If you look at where swap rates are today, they are about the same level as 10 months ago. The 3 year swap rate is up about 0.40% since November. Look at where fixed mortgage rates were 10 months ago - much, much higher than today.
This means banks are taking a margin hit. Not sure the banks will be very happy about that. I reckon this could be a very short price war, or something else has to give.
"This means banks are taking a margin hit. Not sure the banks will be very happy about that."
Haha what margin hit? You mean margin on creating new money out of thin air everytime a loan is taken out? I am fairly sure the banks are still pretty happy about their liscence to print and create most of our currency floating around
Correction, looked this morning when in the office, the lowest rate was 4.75% for one year fixed.
So 4.75 - 5.6% spread, this is the market currently what has been offered this week....
Interesting thing is it comes with the clients having to sign a confidentiality agreement with the bank documents :-)
Don't know if that would stand up, assume it is to give that bank a jump on others. At best,,possibly delay the word so to speak.
I'm constantly amused by the OCR debate here, I believe it is entirely driven by bank margins, which on balance, are not materially effected by the OCR.
Its a simple trade off for the banks, margin vs market share..with the constant jostling on a quarterly basis to reflect decent numbers and growth where possible with the system.
One month a bank will discount heavly from their carded rates, the next not interested except for the small .25-.3 discount to make you feel they have moved...
'Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose' - .......Ca c'est tout a fait la verite chere ami...tristement!
The appearance of change is often nothing but the repetition of somebody else's mistakes at some point further down the time line...
History is both facinating - when it remains in the past - and fear rendering (when it raises its ugly head again)!
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