Home Loans & Mortgages

After all Westpac has pulled itself from near bankruptcy in the early nineties to be a contender Australia’s biggest bank. Mainly at the cost of its mortgage holders, during the Global Financial Crisis, and the “Banana smoothie” scandal. [Free publicity is good publicity, and who doesn't like a banana smoothie Gail, right?] So there’s a missed branding opportunity. “The Banana Smoothie Bank”. [smoothie in more ways than one it would seem]

Westpac chief executive, Gail Kelly is not happy with Government plans to ensure that all Australians are free to move their mortgages, and has hit out at moves by the federal government to ban exit fees on home loans from July this year.
She claims that the forced abolition of the mortgage exit fees would in fact make it harder for smaller lenders to compete in the home loan market, without explaining why, and why she should care about Westpac’s competitors in the first place!

National Australia Bank [NAB] is continuing its home loan assault on its bigger rivals by announcing the launch of new discount online home loans, designed and pitched at its main rivals weaknesses. NAB has released its home loans online under its UBank brand NAB’s UBank’s standard variable rate is currently 7.05 per cent pa which is the lowest [...]

Big Bank wars tipped on exit fees to favour the mortgage borrower. The National Australia Bank  [NAB] is an also ran in mortgage home loan lending right now and wants to grab a bigger slice of the mortgage lending pie. What better way than to drop your interest rates? Well, they did that last year [...]

Having offered the cheapest standard variable mortgage rate of the four banks since December last year, the demise of exit fees would be welcomed by the National Australia Bank, which stands to gain the most.