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Savers need to be as aggressive as borrowers when checking bank rate offers. Rate changes may not be coming everyday, but the landscape is shifting

Savers need to be as aggressive as borrowers when checking bank rate offers. Rate changes may not be coming everyday, but the landscape is shifting

Since the August 11 Official Cash Rate reduction, the 'best' offers from banks for terms up to nine month have reduced by about the full -25 basis points official rate reduction.

But for terms one year and longer, there has been little change.

This is true for 'best rates', but is not the case for 'average rates'. Average bank rates have fallen over these longer terms too.

This pattern suggests that savers need to shop around more. Most banks are cutting rates, but not all of them.

And the best offers have shifted somewhat between banks.

The table below shows who has the most desirable rates now. And we have extended our table to show who is offering the lowest rates for each of these terms. Perhaps that suggests that these are the banks you will need to have a hard, honest discussion with if your term deposit comes up for renewal.

Use our deposit calculator to figure exactly how much benefit each option is worth; you can assess the value of more or less frequent interest payment terms, and the PIE products, comparing two situations side by side.

All carded, or advertised, term deposit rates for all institutions for terms less than one year are here, and for terms one-to-five years are here.

Term PIE rates are here.

The latest headline rate offers are in this table.

for a $25,000 deposit Rating 3 mths 6 mths 9 mths 1 yr 18 mths 2 yrs
               
AA- 2.60 3.15 3.25 3.25 3.60 3.35
ASB AA- 2.60 3.20 3.10 3.20 3.65 3.25
AA- 2.60 3.15 3.25 3.25 3.60 3.35
Kiwibank A+ 2.60 3.50 3.20 3.25   3.25
Westpac AA- 2.50 3.50 3.10 3.20 3.20 3.25
               
BBB 2.95 3.30 3.30 3.25 3.60 3.30
Heartland Bank BBB 3.25 3.30 3.30 3.40 3.40 3.60
HSBC Premier AA- 2.55 2.80 2.90 2.90   2.90
RaboDirect A 2.85 3.30 3.35 3.40 3.40 3.45
SBS Bank BBB 2.75 3.55 3.30 3.25 3.60 3.35
A- 2.75 3.15 3.15 3.20 3.25 3.30
UDC AA- 2.75 3.25 3.50 3.55 3.65 3.30

Our unique term deposit calculator can help quantify what each offer will net you.

Term deposit rates

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1 Comments

IMO the deposit market doesn't look very competitive compared to the lending one. Also the banks with the lower credit ratings seem to have the worst rates. You would expect the opposite in a competitive market . The rates really aren't at an investment level, which is why people are taking their money out and buying shares and houses. Hence why both are historic highs. Also no government guarantee with banks, unlike most other OECD countries, so if the housing bubble bursts anything could happen.

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