With wholesale swap rates jumping recently, do banks have a good case to raise mortgage rates? Are you being softened up by their finfluencer mortgage brokers to expect a hike? Is there a good case?

Readers who follow our wholesale swap rate charts will have noticed a substantial +14 bps rise in the one year swap rate over the past few days (after the March quarter CPI was released), extending the longer term trend of rises that have added up to +50 bps from late February, and +70 bps from late November 2025.

Things are slightly different for the two year swap rates, but the trend is similar.

So the obvious question is, what does this mean for fixed home loan rates?

ANZ, followed by Westpac and recently Kiwibank, have been increasing their carded mortgage rates over the past week. They have all referenced the wholesale rate pressures. Is that real? or is it just a convenient excuse?

There are a number of ways to assess this, and what follows is just one of them.

If we go back to when swap rates were last at this current level, we can check what the fixed mortgage rates were then. It turns out July 18, 2025 is that reference point.

What we can see here is that one year fixed rates are now -25 bps lower now than on July 18, 2025.

And we can see that the average margin to swap has fallen from about +175 bps to +154 bps.

From the same starting date, wholesale swap rates have risen +30 bps for the two year duration, whereas the median two year carded fixed home loan rate is up +24 bps, basically keeping things in sync. Here the margins to swap are similar now from a year ago.

From this admittedly simple comparison, it does appear that we could expect one year fixed home loan rates to go up quite soon by about +25 bps. But we should not expect two year fixed home loan rates to rise.

Bank pricing isn't just a question of formulas. Competitive pressures are important too. But we are going into winter when real estate sales volumes fall away and the mortgage market is more focused on refi activity. "What the others do" plays a part in how and when rates move. Because brokers are a significant part of home loan conversations, if banks can convince this relatively small group of finfluencers, then they can more easily get away with slightly uncompetitive rate movements and resulting rate card levels. To us, that is what ANZ and Kiwibank seem to be counting on from their recent shifts in two year fixed rates. But all of them probably do have a good case for some catchup with one year fixed rates.

It would not be unreasonable to expect one year rates to move up quite soon. The others terms are up to market gamesmanship, in the absence of further wholesale rate changes.

To compare mortgage rate offers in a way that includes the application and account fees costs, (or break fee costs if you need to do that), and applying the impact of a cashback/legal fee reimbursement, or other incentives, you can use our home loan comparison calculator. You can find it here. Or, for convenience, we have added it to the bottom of this article.

Negotiate, (even with your mortgage broker). How flexible banks may be will depend on the strength of your financials.

One other useful way to make sense of the changed home loan rates is to use our full-function mortgage calculator which is here.

And if you already have a fixed term mortgage that is not up for renewal at this time, our break fee calculator may help you assess your options. Break fees will be minimal in a rising market. But they become important in a falling market, like now.

Here is the snapshot of the lowest advertised fixed-term mortgage rates on offer from the key retail banks at the moment. 

Fixed, below 80% LVR	6 mths	1 yr	18 mth	2 yrs	3 yrs	4 yrs	5 yrs
as at April 22, 2026	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
ANZ	4.49	4.69	4.99	5.29	5.49	6.19	6.29
	4.49	4.59	4.85	5.09	5.39	5.55	5.69
	4.49	4.59	4.79	4.89	5.29	5.59	5.79
	4.49	4.65 +0.06		5.29 +0.20	5.55 +0.10	5.89 +0.10	5.99 +0.10
	4.49	4.69	4.99	5.19	5.29	5.39	5.59
Bank of China	4.38	4.48	4.68	4.78	5.08	5.38	5.58
China Construction Bank	4.40	4.49	4.49	4.54	4.90	5.10	5.20
Co-operative Bank	4.59	4.65 +0.06	4.99 +0.10	5.29 +0.04	5.49 +0.10	5.75	5.89
ICBC	4.39	4.49	4.65	4.89	5.15	5.45	5.65
	4.49	4.59	4.85	5.09	5.29	5.55	5.69
	4.59	4.49	4.99	5.09	5.29	5.55	5.69