HSBC apologises for any ‘confusion’ caused by temporarily increasing home loan down payments

HSBC CEO Simon Vaughan Johnson apologised for any confusion that might have been caused when last Friday HSBC temporarily doubled home loan down payments for primary residences.

Last Friday, Times of Malta reported that the bank reduced its maximum loan-to-value for primary residences to 80%, from the previous 90%, and also increased the home loan interest rates.

Later in the day at 6pm, HSBC backtracked and updated the website to once again offer a maximum loan-tovalue for primary residences of 90%, but added that the 90% figure was "subject to internal lending criteria."

Asked by this newsroom whether there were any intentions to lower the maximum loan-to-value for primary residences, he said: "We are currently offering 90% loan-to-value, taking a 10% marginal deposit for first-time buyers but also for primary residences. That's always been our intention."

"The website's been corrected and hopefully that's very clear to our cus

tomers. We're very sorry for the confusion that might've caused."

He had told the Times of Malta that the bank "inadvertently" doubled its minimum down payment for home loans on its website.

Asked why it took so long to amend the mistake, he said: "We have a process that we have to follow very carefully which also involves colleagues in Poland. So we had to make sure that was implemented correctly and that everything was correct on the website."

Asked whether the implementation of the wording "subject to internal lending criteria," now meant that the criteria will be stricter, he said: "No, same criteria."