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HSBC says it will cut fixed mortgage rates for its Premier rate card, but not until Thursday, May 21. However at this time, the signaled rates are among the most competitive for four popular terms

Personal Finance
HSBC says it will cut fixed mortgage rates for its Premier rate card, but not until Thursday, May 21. However at this time, the signaled rates are among the most competitive for four popular terms

HSBC is the next to announce lower mortgage rates.

Their one year fixed becomes 2.80%, a fall of -15 bps, matching China Construction Bank and almost matching the market-leading 2.79% rate from the Bank of China.

Their new eighteen month rate becomes 2.85% which is a reduction of -10 bps and becomes the market-leading rate for this term.

And their new two year rate becomes 2.89%, a fall of -20 bps but not quite matching China Construction Bank's 2.85% rate for this term.

They also cut their six month fixed rate by -15 bps to 3.49%.

All these rates are for their Premier offer which comes with minimum conditions.

This is an early announcement; none of these rates will be available until Thursday, May 21. (Update: In an earlier version, our headline reported the wrong effective date.)

Here is the full snapshot of the advertised lowest fixed-term rates on offer from the key retail banks at this time.

Fixed, below 80% LVR 6 mths  1 yr  18 mth  2 yrs   3 yrs  4 yrs  5 yrs 
as announced at May 14, 2020 % % % % % % %
               
ANZ 3.65 2.99 3.20 3.25 3.99 4.75 4.85
ASB 3.89 3.05 3.25 2.99 3.69 3.79 3.89
4.79 3.09 3.05 3.35 3.69 3.79 3.89
Kiwibank 4.29 2.99   3.39 3.65 3.99 4.09
Westpac 4.79 3.05 4.25 2.99 3.39 3.49 3.59
               
Bank of China 3.89 2.79 2.89 2.89 3.19 3.79 3.89
China Construction Bank 4.70 2.80   2.85 3.19 3.30 3.45
Co-operative Bank 3.09 3.09 3.35 3.35 3.69 3.79 3.89
Heartland Bank   2.89   2.97 3.39    
HSBC 3.49
2.80
2.85
2.89
3.50 3.60 3.70
ICBC 4.29 3.18 3.18 3.18 3.20 3.99 3.99
SBS Bank 3.89 3.09 3.39 3.39 3.69 3.79 3.89
  3.89 2.89 3.35 3.35 3.69 3.79 3.89

In addition to the above table, BNZ has a unique fixed seven year rate of 5.20%.

Fixed mortgage rates

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19 Comments

until people start defaulting and the losses pile up.

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2.89 is great, but their criteria is tough. I know a lot of people are saying don't fix rates are falling but there isnt a heap of difference between 2.89 2.99 3.09 unless the loans a really huge.
17th is Sunday.

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Which underlines the futility of rate cuts 'down here'!
From 10% to 3%, now there's a saving! But from here down? Immaterial in any way but psychologically.

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I dunno - I'm on 3.39% but expect around 2.6% end of year at least. That is around a 20% reduced interest cost. Pretty huge to me

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I feel bw couldn't be more wrong. In many cases people will be coming off 3.99 and onto less than 3. Landlord's profits are often very thin and this helps a lot. Suddenly a property goes from breaking even to making a modest income. Or for home owners a few thousand more to spend.

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Date error in the title I think..now fixed.

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The press are struggling like the rest of us.

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Like ZERO or negative ?

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I got mine fixed and I don't mean the mortgage(s)!
Didn't hurt at all..

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I'd be worried about the operating efficiency of a bank that takes a whole week to enact a fixed rate change. Let's be honest though, HSBC is very much a niche player - no branches, poor CX, harder criteria and yet their rates only minimal difference to full service bank. They must be under pain.

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HSBC did pretty well globally out of the GFC compared to many banks. But Europe's biggest bank has definitely been having a less favourable time in the last few years. However, I don't think HSBC's marginal presence in NZ has ever been an indication of pain. I banked with HSBC for many years and their presence in NZ was explained to me by them to be about maintaining services for their existing high net wealth customers or picking up new high net wealth individuals in NZ, who might also then be interested in other global services. They want to capture wealthy NZ-ers who might then bank with them across the globe. I didn't get the impression they were interested in the tiny domestic NZ market but that they want the prestige of being able to claim that they are a global bank who offer services across the globe for their "global customers". That's their brand.

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Weren't HSBC involved in one of the biggest money laundering scandals ever? Pretty sure Pablo and his mates were key clients for years. You can pretty much well pin the AML pain on them. I wouldn't go near them - seem to have an endless scandals going on there

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......Still expecting good news from BNZ for 1 year rate.

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Still extremely expensive rates taking into account the current OCR compared to prior levels. Banks still didn't match the past OCR cuts and in a crisis like this taking advantage or it to increase their margins is unethical at least, more supervision is required if we want the RBNZ intentions to push economy to have the effect they are intended to have.

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It might be more margin preservation than margin increasing. It's worth remembering that NZ banks are still heavily reliant on retail deposits so that's just as relevant to their funding costs as the OCR. The minimum rate at which retail depositors are willing to accept becomes the floor. For example if the retail deposit floor was 2% and a banks margin was 1% then to preserve their margin they need to keep loans at 3%. In this case if the OCR dropped say 50bps and the bank kept it's loans at 3%, it hasn't increased it's margin by 50bps, it's still only 1%. Now that's a very simplistic view as it ignores bank funding sources heavily linked to the OCR such as the new Term Lending Facility and ignores things such as the free funds of transactional balances etc. but it serves it's purpose in showing how a less than full pass though of OCR cuts is not necessarily banks increasing their margins.

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Banks do not lend the money that depositors give them, this is not how the banking system works, they create debt up to a multiple of their deposits, so there's no real correlation between deposit interests and mortgages, as much as they would like everyone to think there is.

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Yes finally BNZ reduced the 1 year rate to 3.05 yay

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And two years to 2.99 matching ASB

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May need to think again about HSBC given the Financial Times article yesterday that they might be closing or selling the NZ HSBC business soon!

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