A quarter of new home loans went to first home buyers in an otherwise steady lending market from January to June this year, according to retail banking insights released by the New Zealand Banking Association today.
There were a total of 1.4 million home loans across 1.2 million customers at the end of June. The average loan value was $329,656, up 2% from the previous six months.
Of the 60,249 new home loans opened in the period, 25% were for first home buyers. The average home loan value for first home buyers was $507,690, up 3% from the previous period.
New Zealand Banking Association chief executive Roger Beaumont says: “It’s great to see first home buyers taking advantage of the current property market and getting into their first home. A quarter of new home loans were for first home buyers, and that was similar for the previous six months.”
Around 40% of home loan customers were paying more than their minimum repayments, while 1.5% were behind on their repayments.
12,555 home loans switched from principal and interest to interest-only repayments, a decrease of 28% from the previous six months.
Other banking insights for the six months to June included:
- There were 2 billion transactions made by 10.1 million unique bank customers.
- Cash transactions in branches declined 12.2% to 1.9 million.
- There were 5.9 million customers actively using internet banking or mobile apps, up 3.7% from the previous period.
- 67.1% of credit cards were paid off in full without incurring any interest cost.
- The total value of term deposits decreased 2.2% to $188 billion, with the average interest rate on term deposits decreasing from 5.6% p.a. to 4.1% p.a.
- 6,717 customers were granted hardship status, down 9.1% from the previous period.
- Banks received 6.3% fewer complaints.
- Banks received around 884,000 calls from customers each month.
“Despite the challenging economic conditions, we’re seeing most customers continuing to manage their money well,” says Beaumont.
The full set of retail banking insights for January to June 2025 is available here: https://nzba.org.nz/banking-information/banking-stats/retail-banking-insights-june-2025/
ENDS
The New Zealand Banking Association has released its latest retail banking insights, and they show that of the 60,249 new home loans opened from January to June this year, 25% were for first home buyers.
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