The official cash rate was held at 3% at this morning's announcement, with Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard saying it was appropriate to keep interest rates at what he has previously called "a very stimulatory" level but tighter monetary policy will probably be "required at some stage".
This is good news for borrowers as it is unlikely for floating rates to rise for several months.
Also this week the Commerce Commission entered into a settlement with New Zealand Guardian Trust resulting from an investigation into break fees and we check out the margins between banks home loan rates and the OCR in our latest graph.
Silver Fern Mortgages has increased its one-year rate by 10 basis points and dropped its two and three-year rates by 25 points and its four and five-year rates by 5 points. These changes bring their rates closer to the median rates for non-bank lenders.
