“Banks already do a lot to identify and help prevent scams, and these new measures will enhance tech solutions to help protect customers from increasingly sophisticated scams.”
Banking Association chief executive Roger Beaumont said the new scam protection measures were “a huge step up in the fight against scams”.
Retail banking insights released today by the New Zealand Banking Association showed both the number and value of home loans in the second half of 2024 increased significantly compared to the first half.
The insights show there were 56,938 new home loans in July to December 2024, up 21% from the previous six months. The overall value of new home loans increased by 24.7% to $23 billion.
Of the 56,938 new home loans, 26.7% were issued to first time home buyers. The average value of a home loan for first home buyers was $493,000, up 4.4% from the previous six months.
In all there were 1.4 million home loans across 1.1 million customers at New Zealand’s retail banks.
New Zealand Banking Association chief executive Roger Beaumont says: “The increase in home lending is quite significant. A factor that may have influenced this is the movement in the official cash rate, which declined from 5.5% to 4.25% in the second half of last year. It also reflects a growing return of confidence to the property sector.”
While 1.5% of home loan customers were behind on their loan repayments, 39.4% were paying more than their minimum repayments, similar to the previous six months.
“It’s great to see a large proportion of people with home loans ahead on their repayments and reaping the benefits of paying down their loan faster, especially in the current economic climate,” says Beaumont.
Of the 1.4 million home loans, 17,445 switched from principal and interest repayments to interest only repayments, up from 13,095 in the previous period.
In other insights, 2.17 million customers had a credit card. 66.5% of cards were paid off in full without incurring any interest cost. The average monthly spend was $2,131.
Bank customers made over 2.1 billion transactions in the six month period, 3.6% of which were made in branches. ATM transactions made up 1.8% of all transactions.
The full set of retail banking insights for July to December 2024 is available here: https://www.nzba.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Retail-banking-insights-July-to-December-2024.pdf.
ENDS
A spokesperson from the NZ Banking Association says the Reserve Bank is taking the lead on behalf of the Council of Financial Regulators to act on recommendations for the banking industry to co-operate to make basic bank accounts widely available. “NZBA and our member banks are working with RBNZ and the Commerce Commission to progress this recommendation.”
“We’re also asking the Government to help remove any regulatory barriers to the Anti-Scam Centre working effectively, and to set scam prevention expectations for other industries.”
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Roger Beaumont, chief executive of New Zealand’s Banking Association, noted the issue of the lenders’ net-zero targets was also being investigated by the parliamentary inquiry into banking competition.
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