Bank cuts mortgage rates by up to 40bps

Heritage Bank has announced cuts of up to 40 basis points across its owner-occupied and investment fixed rates.

The bank’s changes, which are effective from 17 April, are as follows:

• owner-occupied principal and interest fixed rates have been cut by up to 30bps, with rates now starting from 3.79 per cent
• investment principal and interest rates have been cut by up to 40 basis points, with rates now starting from 3.94 per cent
• interest-only fixed rates have been cut by up to 20 basis points, with rates now starting from 4.19 per cent

Following the announcement, Heritage CEO Peter Lock said that the bank’s changes could help ease housing affordability pressures for borrowers.

“We’re all about providing great value to our customers,” he said. “We do that through the fantastic service that we provide and also by offering extremely competitive rates.”

Mr Lock added: “We want to encourage more people to look to us for their home loan solutions, and the market-leading flexibility of our fixed rate products is a real advantage.

“For many, housing affordability is becoming more of a reality. The flexibility of our fixed rate products when coupled with our well-recognised family guarantee product provide practical solutions for those looking to enter into the housing market for the first time.”

Heritage Bank’s rate changes follow moves from Westpac, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Bendigo Bank, who also cut their fixed mortgage rates by up to 30 basis points last week.

ING, Macquarie, ME, HomeStart, Suncorp Bank, Teachers Mutual Bank and Adelaide Bank also recently announced rate reductions on either their fixed rate or variable home loan products.

Conversely, AMP, MyState, NAB and its subsidiary UBank, the Bank of Queensland and Virgin Money have increased rates since the start of 2019, citing funding cost pressures.

Despite the out-of-cycle rate changes, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has held the official cash rate at 1.5 per cent.

However, some analysts, including AMP chief economist Shane Oliver and NAB chief economist, market, Ivan Colhoun, expect the RBA to drop the cash rate over the coming months, in response to weak housing market conditions and subdued wage growth.

[Related: Westpac reprices home loans]