Home Loans & Mortgages

Mortgage offset accounts give you a far better [effective] rate of return, and a rate of return above inflation. Savings accounts in effect lose you money, but an offset home loan can give you a return of 9 per cent, says Clare Francis. Not one bank is paying a positive return on its standard savings [...]

Bendigo Bank wants to expand wealth management with its $1.2 billion bid for wholesale customer darling Adelaide Bank. Bendigo and Adelaide, which hold the top two positions in Roy Morgan’s poll of banking customer satisfaction, will become a $4 billion company and break into the top 70 listed companies in Australia after the merger. Bendigo [...]

Bank Leaders from Australia’s biggest banks and home loan lenders have blamed both sides of politics for being lazy and ignoring the national housing affordability crisis. Ralph Norris, chief executive of the Commonwealth Bank, and Aussie Home Loans founder John Symonds, said the problem of not being able to afford a home was becoming worse for many consumers. [...]

Adelaide Bank shareholders will need to approve a planned merger with the larger Bendigo Bank. The boards of the Adelaide and Bendigo banks have announced plans to merge. [Bendigo Bank is a regional community bank player, and Adelaide Bank is Australia's wholesale mortgage lender player, with 90 percent of its home loans done outside South [...]

NAB and Aussie Home Loans are the latest lenders to join the rush to cut rates, following ANZ’s lead.