Tuesday 8th of November 2005

Everyone has had something to say on Alan Bollard's recent speeches - but here is a new angle.

First up, it has been a common criticism over the years that the OCR and the Policy Targets Agreement the Reserve Bank has to run the economy are pretty crude.

Well it seems like things have gotten even crudier - besides the OCR club there is now the guv's jawbone. Hardly inspiring stuff for managing a modern economy.

I doubt anyone is going to curb their spending just because Bollard has asked them to. The other crazy thing is that all the OCR increases do is push up the floating rate home loan rates, yet no one is borrowing money on variable rates - it's mainly fixed rate lending in the country and has been for some time.

As others as noted his speeches sound a little like panic.

Bollard's comments about the Australian-owned banks, their alleged profiteering and their cheap home loans have missed out one important point.

The bank which has been arguably the most aggressive in terms of pricing has been none other than the government-owned Kiwibank.
Within Good Returns we have the most comprehensive and user-friendly home loan rate available to the public. Within the section you can compare historical rates from lending organisations and plot graphs.

The following two demonstrate that over the past couple of months Kiwibank has been the most aggressive in terms of pricing.




You can compare rates at Good Returns here