Earthquake could result in OCR cut

All the news focus is currently on the Christchurch earthquake and our thoughts are with readers in that region.

Thursday, February 24th 2011, 3:21PM

The devastation is going to have a major economic impact. Banks have offered loan relief and just this morning ASB and the Deutsche Bank suggested that the Reserve Bank should cut the OCR by 50 basis points on March 10. Other economists expect the OCR to hold until 2012.

This week we have started to get the bank general disclosure documents for the December quarter. These make interesting reading to see how each organisation is going in the home loan market. However, Westpac has changed the way it reports its numbers, and in our view made a mockery of the reporting system.

We also saw some movement with mortgage rates late last week as Kiwibank reduced its six-month rate by 40 basis points to 5.95% as a special.  HSBC also cut its six-month rate to below 5% with conditions.

For brokers, particularly those becoming authorised, we have a new Blog from the Securities Commission to provide up-to-date information on the regulatory process.

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