WELLINGTON: SBS Bank has cut its three year ‘special’ home loan rate. The new rate is 4.65%, representing a reduction of -14 bps. That means SBS Bank now offers the lowest three year carded rate in New Zealand. The new rate will be available from Monday, January 18, 2015. At this time they have changed no other mortgage rates.
SBS Bank ‘specials’ require a minimum of 20% equity, with wages or salary payments made into an SBS Bank transaction account. The new rate is available to existing SBS Bank customers, but new customers can only qualify if they take new lending of $100,000 or more, and take up at least one SBS insurance product.
Their new 3 year rate gives than a 10 bps advantage over ASB and the Cooperative Bank for that term, and a larger advantage of all other banks. A three year fixed rate basically comes with a +30 bps premium over a two year rate these days.
SBS Bank was the only home loan institution to offer a rate below 4% in the past 40 years with its recent 3.99% one-year ‘special’, but that offer ended on January 10. It’s current one year rate is 4.35% a level offered by others, and one above the 4.25% offered by HSBC to is Premier clients.
The next review of the OCR will happen in two weeks, on Thursday, January 28, 2016. Markets are currently not expecting any change at that time. But wholesale swap markets are changing, especially for terms 2-5 years as risk aversion sinks in.
Market turmoil and uncertainty in China will also influence rate pricing if it continues. This will mainly be felt through the risk premiums that wholesale borrowers must pay to access funds. These risk premiums have been rising fast in the past few days, even as wholesale rates have been softening.
