Home Loans in Australia (Bonds)

[Bob]

I don't watch much TV nowadays, so it was interesting for me to see on the 6 o'clock news reports (Channel 9) that the Big 4 high street banks are being criticised by consumer groups for hanging on to the interest rate falls over the past few months that the Reserve Bank of Australia charges the banks and not passing them on to their customers.

The Reserve Bank of Australia is set to drop interest rates in 2013 by a full percentage point, but whether home loan borrowers with the Big 4 high street banks will see this drop is doubtful.

Home loan borrowers are paying greater interest payments than they need to when taking out home loans with Westpac, ANZ, Nat Aust Bank and the Commonwealth Banks.

What sparked my interest was that the smaller Aussie banks and even non-bank home loan lenders were getting top marks in financial circles with their home loan products.

ME (Member's Equity) Bank was one of four recommended. This bank passes on the interest rate falls to its customers.

On ME Bank's website they state they are experiencing unprecedented interest from Aussies in their home loans because they are so good.

So . . . . please . . . . do your homework, shop around, compare interest rate repayments over the years and read the "fine print" which has to do with "management fees", accounting fees and so on.

. . . . or pay more over the next few years in interest.

http://www.memberseq...nal/home_loans/

Lastly, I'd just like to add that although ME Bank is one of Australia's newest and smallest banks, it's actually owned by the Superannuation funds in Australia which have investments and portfolios across the economic spectrum amounting to over $1 000 billion.

I don't think it's going to go bust if the economy takes a down-turn, unlike some Aussie banks did in the past 200 years in the Gold rush days!

Edited December 21, 2012 by Bob