by Paul McBeth
ANZ is launching a cut-rate home loan product next week that offers discounted interest charges for the life of the loan.
Called Money Saver, it's a variable rate loan that has some extra conditions but a lower interest rate than the bank's standard variable rate. That discount is currently set at 40 percentage points, so that would mean a rate of 8.40 per cent compared with the bank's regular floating rate of 8.80 per cent.
Back in February, it was the ASB Bank that paved the way for no-frills loans when it launched Economiser, a similar product that started out at 50 percentage points below the bank's then floating rate of 7.60 per cent. ASB Bank said at the time that it had come up with Economiser to take a competitive position in the market, especially given the growing competition from lower-priced mortgage providers.
But back to ANZ's Money Saver. Conditions include a compulsory loan fee of $600, monthly fees of $10, no loan repayment holidays or interest-only lending and a minimum loan amount of $20,000.
Money Saver will be available from next Tuesday, June 6.