ASB has today dropped four of its fixed home lending rates, as all the major banks make moves ahead of next week’s official cash rate decision by the Reserve Bank.
It comes in the wake of ANZ, BNZ, Kiwibank and Westpac, who all dropped some fixed and special home loan interest rates in recent days.
Effective immediately, ASB said it had dropped the six-month fixed home lending term 17 basis points from 5.29% to 5.12%.
Its one-year and 18-month terms were both reduced by 10 basis points, to 4.79%. All the major banks are offering 4.79% for one-year.
The two-year rate dropped 6 basis points from 4.95% to 4.89%.
ASB also reduced some term deposit rates by between 5 and 15 basis points.
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“We’ve got tens of thousands of customers due to refix onto lower rates in 2025, and we know any rate reduction is going to help these households, with savings they can put towards other important things,” said ASB’s executive general manager personal banking Adam Boyd.
“By Christmas, around 90% of customers holding a fixed home loan are likely to be on a rate less than 6%.”
Economist Cameron Bagrie told 1News this week that while the recent drops in interest rates were good for buyers, they were not good for savers.
“Banks are trimming rates on both sides of their balance sheet. Term deposit rates have been coming down and in line with mortgage rates. So there’s some winners out there and there’s some losers on the other side,” he said.
“We’ve seen green shoots, but green shoots sometimes turn brown, and there’s a lot of global uncertainty at the moment.”