Rates up, up, up

The past week has been a good one for people looking to put money on deposit. Rabobank has set the rates on its perpetual notes at 9.48%, one finance company has set a new high water mark for the industry and another is offering an extra 0.85% to existing customers.

Tuesday, October 9th 2007, 5:04AM

Rabobank, yesterday, set the rate on its $900 million perpetual notes at 9.48% for the first year.

These unsecured notes are perpetual, that is they don't have a maturity date, and the rate is set every 12 months. They have a AA Standard and Poor's rating (compared to AAA for RaboPlus).

The first year's rate is set at a margin of 0.76% over the one-year swap rate.

Meanwhile two finance companies made significant boosts to their rates in the past week.

New Zealand Finance Holdings subsidiary, Finance Direct has a 12 % interest rate for a 12 month term, with interest paid quarterly.

Executive director Wayne Croad says that the company has a different risk profile to a trading bank and "to attract investors we need to offer a return that justifies that higher level of risk."

"We believe that offering a 12 % return to investors will still enable us to grow and will not compromise the quality of our loan book," he says.

"This is the best rate on offer and we hope it will appeal to serious investors. We are targeting the more sophisticated investor, one who can weigh up risk versus reward and one who can see beyond this current market upheaval," Croad says.

The minimum investment is $10,000 and subscriptions for this offer are limited to $5 million.

Speirs, which is listed on the NZX, also rolled out a special rate to investors last week. Like Finance Direct the rate is capped (maximum amount that can be raised is $20 million), but it is only open to "our loyal investors, shareholders and bondholders," executive chairman Nelson Speirs says.

"This is the time to reward our investors for their loyalty and to build the strength of our business to take advantage of the opportunities that are being created by the industry shake-out."

Speirs is paying 0.85% above its latest investment rates for a new investment for terms of between 6 months and 18 months.

For re-investment of maturing Secured Stock it is offering 0.85% above its latest investment rates.

Its rate for six months is 9.70%, 12 months 10.00% and 18 months 10.25%.

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