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Westpac has announced it will cut its 2 year mortgage rate by 25 basis points to 8.95% from Monday, matching the cut by ASB Bank yesterday after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand cut its Official Cash Rate by a similar amount. The move was confirmed by Westpac spokesman Craig Dowling.

The moves by Westpac and ASB have surprised many market observers and the Reserve Bank, which had been expecting the banks to pass on higher international funding costs.

An ANZ National spokeswoman said their rates were being reviewed but no decision had been taken. BNZ has yet to comment. BNZ has a 2 year rate of 9.19% and ANZ and National are on 9.20%.

A Kiwibank spokesman said: “We jumped the gun.” He was referring to Kiwibank’s cut in its special 2 year rate for 20% plus equity borrowers of 8.99%.

Tags: ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Craig Dowling, Mortgage rates, National, Westpac

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 2:56 pm and is filed under Mortgage rates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.