BNZ shaves floating mortgage rate and boosts deposit rate

The BNZ has followed in the footsteps of its Australian-owned rivals shaving a tiny fraction off its floating mortgage rate and boosting its term deposit rate.

The bank is the last of the majors to announce rate changes in the wake of yesterday's decision by the Reserve Bank to cut the official cash rate by 0.25 percentage points to a record low of 2 per cent.

In a statement released this morning the BNZ said it would drop its floating home loan rate by 0.05 percentage points to 5.64 per cent.

At the same time the bank will increase its 18 month term deposit rate by 0.30 percentage points to 3.6 per cent.

Craig Herbison, BNZ's director of retail and marketing said its decision had been influenced by a range of factors including the OCR.

"There are a range of factors that influence whether bank increases or decreases its interest rates and the OCR is one of those.

"Other considerations are costs, the volatility of offshore markets and the requirement to hold greater capital.

BNZ's rate changes emulate decisions made by the ANZ, Westpac and ASB banks which also announced small cuts to floating mortgage rates and deposit rate increases.

State-owned Kiwibank was the only bank to pass on most of all of the 0.25 percentage point cut.

Reserve Bank governor Graeme Wheeler said yesterday he hoped the banks would pass on most of the OCR cut.

Floating home loan rates
ANZ 5.59%
ASB 5.55%
BNZ 5.64%
Westpac 5.65%
Kiwibank 5.25%