- The New Zealand Banking Association says while the Reserve Bank is raising the cost of borrowing to help fight inflation, people are starting to borrow less. That’s also a reflection of the property market.
- Data from the New Zealand Banking Association, released on Monday, shows new home loan values have dropped 18.9 percent in the six months to last December.
- “It shows that many people took advantage of interest rates when they were at historic lows. They likely retained their repayments at the same level as before, or increased them, to help repay their loans faster and save on the overall loan cost. It also means that nearly half the people with home loans had... Read more »
- The NZBA figures showed that there are nearly 1.26 million home loans across 1.09 million customers. The average value of all home loans is $316,019. Of the 45,628 new home loans opened in the last six months of 2022, 26.1% were issued to first home buyers.
- New Zealand Banking Association Te Rangapū Pēke chief executive Roger Beaumont said banks were working to address financial inclusion issues, “which often needs to be balanced with the need to comply with legal and regulatory obligations, including things like anti-money laundering law”.
- But the New Zealand Banking Association has said banks need time to build quality products for consumers, and were already inundated with regulation demands.
- NZBA’s chief executive Roger Beaumont, asked for a response to the Government’s latest repair effort, said the tweaks to the CCCFA regulations “still mean affordability assessments are needed for all types of lending and borrowers. This also means banks no longer have the discretion or flexibility to help customers in need, for example in cases... Read more »
- The NZ Banking Association also questioned whether OBR would work, saying it is unique to NZ and that there are no examples of it working anywhere, with or without a deposit guarantee scheme.
- “Last year banks made a net contribution to our economy of $1.92bn. They spent $9.1bn running their businesses and paying tax in New Zealand, compared to combined profits of $7.18bn,” Beaumont said.
- Beaumont says that recent changes to the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act, which require the same affordability assessments for all borrowers, mean that banks no longer have the discretion and flexibility to help customers in emergencies or cases of economic harm.
