ING reprices home loan offerings

Effective for new business from today (27 March):

• Owner-occupied variable rate mortgages with principal and interest repayments will decrease by 8 basis points, while those with interest-only repayments will increase by 11 basis points
• Investment variable rate loans with principal and interest and interest-only repayments will decrease by up to 40 basis points
• Investor three, four and five-year fixed rate loans will decrease by 10 basis points

ING’s owner-occupied home loan rates will now start from 3.80 per cent, while its investment home loans will start from 4.04 per cent.

The bank’s latest pricing changes come less than two months after its decision to increase rates for all of its customers by 15 basis points, in response to funding cost pressures.

When asked why the bank has made these latest adjustments, an ING spokesperson told The Adviser: “We review our rates regularly, and occasionally we change them to adjust to market changes while continuing to be best placed to provide our customers with simple, effective banking products.”

According to comparison website Canstar’s group executive of financial services, Steve Mickenbecker, ING’s decision to cut investment home loan rates is designed to stimulate demand from investors.  

“As with several other lenders, the larger decreases are for new loans to investors, confirming just how deep the fall in demand for investment lending has been,” Mr Mickenbecker said.

According to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s latest residential property exposure statistics for authorised deposit-taking institutions, new home lending volumes fell by $25.1 billion (6.5 per cent) over the year to 31 December 2018.

The decline was driven by a sharp reduction in new investment lending, which dropped by $17.7 billion (14 per cent), from $126.9 billion to $109.2 billion over the same period.

 [Related: New banking group appoints former ING CEO to board]