First-home buyers secured nearly 25% of new home loans in the first half of the year, with average borrowing for FHBs topping $500,000, according to the NZBA

New data from the New Zealand Banking Association (NZBA) shows nearly a quarter of the 72,209 new home loans between January and June went to first-home buyers.

The latest retail banking insights from the NZBA found there was a 2% increase to the total of 72,209 new home loans approved between January and June, up from 70,811 in the previous six-month period (July to December 2025).

First-home buyers accounted for 22.4% of mortgages taken out in the first six months of this year. The NZBA says the average value of a home loan for first home buyers was $506,761, a decline of 3.4% from the last period.

Data from Inland Revenue (IRD), which acts as the central administrator for KiwiSaver, shows $1.14 billion was withdrawn from the retirement savings scheme between January and June to be used for early withdrawals for first home purchases.

The NZBA says there were a total of 1.4 million home loans across 1.1 million customers between January and June, with the average home loan value per customer being $351,748. That’s a 1.8% increase from the last six-month reporting period.

While 1.2% of loans were behind on their loan repayments, a 0.2% decrease, around 42.9% were ahead on loan repayments, unchanged from the last reporting period.

According to the NZBA, 62.2% of loans were on fixed interest rates, 16.3% were on variable rates and the remaining 21.5% were on a mix of fixed and variable rates.

Meanwhile, the total value of savings accounts decreased by 1.3% to $112.8 billion – with an average balance of $16,879 – and the total value of term deposits increased by 0.4% to $195.7 billion, with an average balance of $111,030.

Cash isn’t on the way out – yet

There were a total of 2.2 billion customer transactions processed between January and June, an 8.4% decline from 2.4 billion in the prior period.

Just 1.6% of the 2.2 billion customer transactions were at ATMs, down slightly from 1.7% in the previous six months.

Cash transactions in branches decreased by 11.5% to 1.9 million, down from 2.1 million. Cash transactions in branches accounted for 2.5% of all branch transactions between January and June, down from 2.7%.

The NZBA says that as cash use has fallen, there’s been an increase in internet banking and mobile app users, with those users increasing by 2.4% to 6.2 million active customers. This accounts for just over 74% of the NZ banking industry’s 10.18 million unique customers.

There were approximately 8.3 million customers registered on online banking, including mobile banking apps, equating to 81.6% of all unique customers, the NZBA says. This is up from 79.8% in the last reporting period.

“Cash use has been declining year on year, while the shift to digital payments and online and mobile banking grows,” NZBA chief executive Roger Beaumont says.

“That’s not to say cash is on the way out. We know that some people prefer to use it for various reasons, including budgeting, cultural purposes, gifting, and fundraising, among other things.”

According to Payments NZ’s latest biennial consumer survey, 84% of respondents reported using contactless payments at least sometimes, although enthusiasm for contactless payments was found to be declining among older people.

Almost 10% increase in complaints per transaction

Banks received 1.7% more complaints than the previous period, according to the NZBA, with banks receiving one complaint for approximately every 46,229 transactions. This is a 9.9% increase in complaints per transaction compared to the last reporting period.

Banks were resolving complaints in around 4.9 days, remaining unchanged from the previous six months, while 2.5% of all customer complaints received between January and June required resolution through the Banking Ombudsman Scheme.

The Banking Ombudsman Scheme reported a 10-year high in the volume of banking disputes that it handled in its latest June-year annual report, largely driven by a 59% increase in lending disputes compared to the prior year.