Westpac reprices home loans

The trend of out-of-cycle fixed rate mortgage cuts has continued, with Westpac announcing reductions of up to 20 basis points for both new and existing customers.

Effective Friday, 12 April, the major bank is decreasing rates on its Fixed Option Home Loan and its Fixed Rate Investment Property Loan with principal and interest repayments.

For Fixed Option Home Loans with principal and interest repayments:

• three-year fixed rate will drop by 10 basis points to 3.79 per cent (4.89 per cent comparison rate)
• four-year fixed rates will drop by 20 basis points to 4.09 per cent (4.92 per cent comparison rate)
• five-year fixed rates will drop by 10 basis points to 4.09 per cent (4.87 per cent comparison rate)

For Fixed Rate Investment Property Loan with principal and interest repayments:

• two-year fixed rates will drop by 6 basis points to 3.89 per cent (5.42 per cent comparison rate)
• three-year fixed rates will drop by 20 basis points to 3.99 per cent (5.33 per cent comparison rate)
• five-year fixed rates will drop by 10 basis points to 4.39 per cent (5.30 per cent comparison rate)

Westpac’s rate changes follow moves from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Bendigo Bank, who also cut their fixed mortgage rates by up to 30 basis points earlier this week.

ING, Macquarie, ME, HomeStart, Suncorp Bank, Teachers Mutual Bank and Adelaide Bank also recently announced rate reductions on either their fixed rate or variable home loan products.

Conversely, AMP, MyState, NAB and its subsidiary UBank, the Bank of Queensland and Virgin Money have increased rates since the start of 2019, citing funding cost pressures.

Despite the out-of-cycle rate changes, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has held the official cash rate at 1.5 per cent.

However, some analysts, including AMP chief economist Shane Oliver and NAB chief economist, market, Ivan Colhoun, expect the RBA to drop the cash rate over the coming months, in response to weak housing market conditions and subdued wage growth.

[Related: Major bank cuts fixed rates]

Charbel Kadib is the news editor on the mortgages titles at Momentum Media.

Before joining the team in 2017, Charbel completed internships with public relations agency Fifty Acres, and the Department of Communications and the Arts.

You can email Charbel on: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.