BNZ has increased some of its longer-term home loan fixed rates.
Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
BNZ has increased some of its longer-term home loan fixed rates, prompting one economist to say that in hindsight, late last year was borrowers’ best option to lock in a longer rate.
It has cut its six-month rate by 20 basis points to 4.49 percent.
But the four-year rate lifts by 26 basis points to 5.55 percent and the five-year by 40 basis points to 5.69 percent.
“The increases bring their rates to roughly where everyone else has moved to over the last couple of weeks,” said Infometrics chief executive Brad Olsen.
“I think pressure is starting to come on a little bit more when it comes to funding rates, given that if you look at two- to five-year swap rates, they have increased by about 20 basis points again between the end of December and the end of January. There’s probably anelement of trying to wait as long as possible but the realities for bank funding have now become more apparent.”
He said the cashback promotions seen in the past couple of months proved banks wanted to be competitive.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a little bit of a pause until you get a better read at the end of the month when the Reserve Bank makes the decision about the official cash rate. Because at that point, you’ll have a bit of a stronger view of what’s the likely path forward.”
He said it was likely that the talk at the end of last year about whether it was the right time to fix for five had probably proved to be correct. “That’s always the beauty of hindsight, right?”
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