National Bank hikes 1 year and 18 mth mortgage rates

National Bank has become the latest bank to hike fixed mortgage rates in the last week, following moves by Kiwibank, Westpac and TSB. National Bank hiked its one year mortgage rate by 16 basis points (bps) to 6.15%, and its 18 month rate by 15 bps to 6.6%. The new rates are now up near the same rates offered by National's sister bank ANZ. Fixed mortgage rates have been rising in recent weeks on market expectations of a higher Official Cash Rate next year, which are feeding through into higher wholesale 'swaps' rates. Meanwhile, variable rates have remained static and are likely to remain so into mid 2010 when the Reserve Bank is expected to raise the OCR. See and compare all mortgage rates here.