Major bank reduces fixed rates

The largest rate drop is for new interest-only residential investment fixed rate loans, which have dropped by 40 basis points for two-year terms. The new rate is now 4.09 per cent (5.96 per cent comparison).

Three-year terms for investor interest-only fixed rates are now 0.30 per cent lower, bringing the rate to 4.19 per cent (5.75 per cent comparison).

Owner-occupiers applying for interest-only fixed rate loans (for two and three-year terms) will benefit from a drop of 15 basis points (to 4.09 per cent and 4.19 per cent, respectively).

Those applying for principal and interest fixed rate loans will also get access to a reduced rate, with discounts of between 5 and 20 basis points.

The owner-occupier basic promotional home loan has also seen its rate drop to 3.64 per cent (3.65 per cent comparison), a drop of 14 basis points.

Effective from Friday, 1 December, and running “for a limited time”, the new promotional fixed rates will only be applicable to new fixed rate applications submitted after 1 December.

Loans submitted prior to this date are not eligible to receive the new promotional fixed rate offers.

The group announced last month that it had also made changes to its serviceability calculator (after AMP announced it was bringing in additional expense requirements).

Its calculators now include more recent Household Expenditure Measure (HEM) table values for consumer mortgages for originations (including loan increase applications), meaning that loans sent to the banks will now be subject to the June 2017 quarterly HEM values published by the Melbourne Institute.

[Related: Living expenses draw sharper focus]