Westpac adjusts home loan interest rates

WESTPAC this week announced an eight basis points reduction in variable interest rates for customers paying principal and interest on their owner occupier home loans.

This will take the standard variable rate for these owner occupiers to 5.24 per cent per annum.

Westpac has also adjusted interest only rates for variable home loans as follows:

Owner occupied interest only rate will increase by 34 basis points to 5.83% per annum;

Investor interest only rate will increase by 34 basis points to 6.30% per annum.

These rate changes are all effective from June 30, 2017.

George Frazis, chief executive of Westpac Consumer Bank, said this was good news for owner occupier customers who made principal and interest repayments as they would benefit from lower interest rates allowing them to pay off their loans faster.

“We hope the rate reduction will encourage owner occupier customers with interest only home loans to switch to principal and interest repayments, helping them to pay down their home loan in this low interest rate environment,” he said. “There will be no switching fee.

“We understand the significance of interest rate changes to our home loan customers, so we try to balance the needs of both owner occupiers and investors in making these decisions.

“APRA’s limit on new interest only lending is 30% of new residential mortgage lending, so we have to continue to make changes to our interest only rates.”