Mortgage rate U-turn: BNZ cuts long-term rates, 3yr loan dips back under 5%
BNZ has backflipped on its recent mortgage rate hike by dropping its long-term mortgage rates.
It comes after another big bank cut its home loan rates last week in the wake of the first Official Cash rate (OCR) announcement of the year.
BNZ is cutting its three, four and five-year fixed home loan rates by 10-40 basis points (bps), effective today.
The bank’s three-year fixed home loan rate drops by 10bps to 4.99%.
Its four-year lending term is being cut by 36bps from 5.55% to 5.19%.
The largest cut, a 40bps drop, will see the five-year fixed home loan rate fall from 5.69% to 5.29%.
Less than a month ago, BNZ hiked the same five-year term by 40bps to 5.69%.
At the same time, it raised its four-year offering by 26bps to 5.55%.
The Herald has approached BNZ for comment.
Last week, Westpac also made changes to its long-term fixed home loan rates.
Its advertised three-year fixed special rate dropped by 16bps to 4.99%, while its four-year and five-year fixed special rates were reduced by 20bps to 5.19% and 5.29% respectively.
Last week, the Herald reported the drop in wholesale interest rates that followed the Reserve Bank’s OCR review meant banks technically had room to cut some of their fixed mortgage rates.
Reserve Bank Assistant Governor Karen Silk and consultant Jim Reardon broadly affirmed this view.
Wholesale interest rates dropped back a little, because the Reserve Bank was more dovish than expected. The market foresaw it being a more worried about the risk of rising inflation than it was. The market therefore believed the bank would pencil in an OCR hike for the middle of the year.
Instead, the Reserve Bank suggested it would lift the OCR at the end of the year, and keep monetary policy “accommodative for some time”.
The easing back in wholesale interest rates last week, followed a spike late-last year, when the market over-reacted to the Reserve Bank’s commentary following its November OCR review.
So, the reduction in some mortgage rates being seen now follows a lift in December.