{"id":257312,"date":"2026-01-29T08:03:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T08:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/257312\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T08:03:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T08:03:07","slug":"bank-switching-among-mortgage-holders-spiked-in-december-soaring-past-previous-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/257312\/","title":{"rendered":"Bank switching among mortgage holders spiked in December, soaring past previous record"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indeed, they put cashbacks worth up to $30,000 on the table in late 2025.<\/p>\n

Davidson said borrowers putting more of their loans on floating and shorter-term fixed rates last year also made it easier for them to switch banks. Borrowers can only move if they shift their entire mortgage \u2013 not just a part that is up for re-fixing. <\/p>\n

In November, an unusually high 49.4% of new residential mortgage lending<\/a> was on floating terms, suggesting more borrowers than usual may have had the ability to easily switch banks.<\/p>\n

Davidson believed mortgage rates being near their trough in this interest rate cycle in December didn\u2019t affect the amount of bank switching that occurred. <\/p>\n

He doubted borrowers bothered moving based on marginally more attractive rates being offered by some banks versus others.<\/p>\n

There was a lot of movement in interest rates in December. <\/p>\n

Floating and shorter-term mortgage rates came down following the late-November Official Cash Rate (OCR) cut. Longer-term mortgage rates started rising in mid-December, as wholesale markets were surprised by how definitive the Reserve Bank was about its November OCR cut likely being the last in this cycle.<\/p>\n

There is now more upward than downward pressure on mortgage rates. <\/p>\n

Measures the Government and Reserve Bank have taken to improve competition in the banking sector were unlikely to have affected the amount of bank switching that occurred in December.<\/p>\n

Jen\u00e9e Tibshraeny is the Herald\u2019s Wellington business editor, based in the parliamentary press gallery. She specialises in government and Reserve Bank policymaking, economics and banking.<\/p>\n

Stay ahead with the latest market moves, corporate updates, and economic insights by subscribing to our Business newsletter<\/a> \u2013 your essential weekly round-up of all the business news you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Indeed, they put cashbacks worth up to $30,000 on the table in late 2025. Davidson said borrowers putting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3471,24744,82625,1643,148310,1396,138,148311,4381,7500,148309,78,16400,35786,111,139,69,28243,4517,5351,1974,42370,43970,95014,7563,102],"class_list":["post-257312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-among","tag-amount","tag-attractive","tag-bank","tag-bankhopping","tag-banks","tag-business","tag-cashbacks","tag-customers","tag-december","tag-holders","tag-in","tag-mortgage","tag-mortgages","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-offered","tag-past","tag-previous","tag-record","tag-soaring","tag-spiked","tag-switching","tag-those","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}