Bank Customers Savvy With Home Loans And Credit Cards

People generally have a good grasp of their banking products and services according to data insights released by the New Zealand Bankers’ Association today.

“We were delighted to see people using home loans and credit cards to help get ahead financially,” says New Zealand Bankers’ Association chief executive Roger Beaumont.

“Around 44 per cent of people with a home loan are ahead on their repayments. That’s likely because, as interest rates have declined over the last few years, they may have retained their repayments at the same level. Depending on their loan, others may have increased their repayments further to get ahead and repay their loan more quickly. This shows good financial capability among people with home loans. It also means they’re quite well placed in an environment of rising interest rates.

“New Zealanders have a strong fascination with the housing market so it’s interesting to see that for the 1.2 million customers who have a home loan, the average value of those loans is $296,000. Around 56,000 new homes loans were written from July to December last year, and around a quarter of those loans were for first home buyers.

“People with credit cards also look financially savvy, with 68.5 per cent of cards fully paid off in the interest-free period, without incurring any interest cost. That shows most people with credit cards know how they work and how to get the most out of them.”

These, and other retail and small business banking insights, are available here: https://www.nzba.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Retail-and-small-business-banking-insights-July-to-December-2021.pdf.

The information relates to the six months from July to December 2021 and was collected and aggregated from NZBA’s 10 main retail member banks.

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