G&C has undertaken a comprehensive review of interest rates charged on our home loans and savings/deposit products. With home loan rates already at historic lows our priority at G&C has been to implement equitable rate changes that strike a fair balance between the competing needs of our borrowing and depositing members.
Although the extreme low rate environment is great news for home borrowers, we are very mindful of the fact that the vast majority of G&C members (around 90%) do not have a home loan. Many of our saving/depositing members are in retirement or semi-retirement and continue to suffer reduced income due to the impact of falling interest rates.
In order to accommodate these competing member interests, G&C has reduced the rates on all of our standard fixed and variable home loan products while also maintaining competitive (and in some cases above market) rates on our most popular savings and deposit products.
Home Loan Rate Changes
The rates on G&C’s 1-4 year fixed rate home loan products were reduced by between 0.20%-0.40%p.a (effective 5 July 2019), with the result that some of our fixed home loan product rates have now fallen by over 1% in the last 3 months.
The rates on G&C’s variable rate home loan products (for both new and existing borrowers who hold those products) have been reduced by between 0.10%p.a. - 0.20%p.a., with effect on 15 July 2019 for new applications and 1 August 2019 for existing borrowers. G&C’s Standard Variable Rate products for owner occupied borrowers and home loan investors (both interest only and principal and interest product types) have been reduced by 0.20% p.a. The rate on our Retirees Access (Reverse Mortgage) product has also been reduced by 0.20%p.a., which brings a total rate reduction of 0.84%p.a on that product over the past 3 months.
Details of the rate reductions to our entire suite of home loan products can be found on our Rates & Fees page or on your next statement of account.
Savings Rate Changes
G&C’s new savings rates can be viewed on our Rates & Fees page. Although it has been necessary to lower the rates on a number of G&C’s deposit products in order to cover the cost of the loan rate reductions, at 2.25%p.a. the new upper tier rate on our popular Pension Plus Savings Account remains much higher than similar products available from other banks. The upper tier rate of 2.50%p.a. on G&C’s Inet Saver Product is also very competitive and remains unchanged.
While we fully recognise that the low rate environment poses challenges for our retired and semi-retired members, we will continue to look for opportunities to release “special” term deposit rates.
The new rates on G&C’s savings products will take effect on 15 July 2019, with the exception of changes to our Bonus Saver accounts which will take effect on 1 August 2019. Existing members will be advised of their new rates in their next statement of account.
If you require any further information about the impact of the above rate reductions, please refer to our website or contact us.
