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Westpac New Zealand said it was looking to announce changes to its fee structure within the next few weeks after conducting a review of its ‘exception’ fees, including overdrawn account fees and dishonoured payment fees. Westpac NZ’s Australian parent, Westpac Australia, has already announced reductions to exception fees following NAB and BNZ’s overdraft fee cuts last week.

Westpac Australia, along with subsidiary St. George will reduce account overdrawn fees, outward dishonour fees and credit card missed payment and over the limit fees charged to business and personal customers. Fees are being lowered from as high as A$45 to A$9 and will be effective from October 1.

“Westpac New Zealand has been conducting a detailed review of its own exception fee structure – remembering that we are locally incorporated and make decisions taking into account our own operating conditions and costs,” Westpac spokesman Craig Dowling told interest.co.nz.

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An article by Tina Law in the Press has highlighted that Westpac has been offering home loans at up to 90% of a property’s value. Mortgage brokers have also reported other banks lending more than 80%, Law said.

New Zealand’s banks tightened home loan lending ratios in late 2008 as the global financial crisis worsened a slump in the property market. Many banks dropped their 100% lending offers and moved to 80% being the maximum loan to value ratio.

Here are some cuts from the article. We welcome your thoughts and comments below.

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Westpac announced it would cut its business and standard consumer credit card rates by 50 basis points and its low rate card by 55 basis points following the Reserve Bank’s 50 basis point cut in the Official Cash Rate to 3% on Thursday.

The new business and standard consumer rates will be 19.45% and the new low rate card will be at 12.95%, Westpac said. The new rates will be effective on April 1.

“The latest OCR change, we believe, provides an opportunity to address credit card rates again, and demonstrate our willingness to pass through benefits where we can,” Westpac spokesman Craig Dowling said.

To see a full list of credit card rates offered by institutions in New Zealand, click here.

To see a piece on the use of low interest cards, credit card balance transfers, and use of other credit cards, see here.

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Westpac NZ said its computer systems for internet banking, phone banking and Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) went down between midnight and about 6 am this morning after a software upgrade went wrong.

Customers were unable to access their accounts or cash over this period, Westpac spokesman Craig Dowling told RadioLive.

“It was around midnight and it was something that was thought to be routine, a little upgrade going through the system, and it had some concequences that were unforseen, and there was some disruption for our customers that we’re very sorry about,” Dowling said.

“Everything flipped back on about 6 o’clock,” he said.

Westpac said it would compensate customers any fees they were charged for having to use another bank’s ATM machines.

Automatic payments, wage payments and bill payments went through without any problems, Dowling said, adding the only problems were with the ‘front end’ of the computer system, rather than the back end where regular transactions were processed.

Westpac responded to this morning’s 50 basis point cut in the Official Cash Rate by saying it was unlikely there would be any significant changes in its fixed term mortgage rates because they had already priced in the OCR cut to 3%.

Neither did Westpac cut its floating rate after the announcement, saying its rate change on February 19 (to 6.49%) was in anticipation of today’s cut by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.

“Westpac continues to review other rates but suggests fixed term mortgage rates have already built in the expectation of today’s cuts so significant changes there are unlikely,” Westpac spokesman Craig Dowling said.

To see a list of mortgage rates offered by New Zealand institutions, click here.

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Westpac introduced a number of special term deposit rates available for a limited time for its two, three, four and five year rates. The new rates will all be the highest in their respective categories for banks and apply for term deposits of at least NZ$5,000.

Westpac put up its 5 year rate by 130 basis points (bps) to 6%. The new rate sits 85 bps higher than its highest bank competitor, Kiwibank. Its four year rate was pushed up 105 bps to 5.75%, 75 bps above Kiwibank’s 5%. Westpac’s new three year rate is 5.5%, up 80 bps, and 75 bps above Kiwibank’s offering. The new two year rate has been raised by 75 bps to 5.25%, 25 bps above ASB’s 5% rate. See all the rates here.

Westpac said the offer would be open until March 12.

“The rates will benefit many of our customers who are savers but who have seen their interest incomes reduce significantly in the past six months,” Westpac spokesman Craig Dowling said.

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