Wizard Conjures Lowest Floating Mortgage Rate

Media release November 15, 2001

Wizard Conjures New Zealand’s Lowest Floating Mortgage Rate

Leading non-bank lender Wizard Home Loans has cut its floating mortgage rates by half of one per cent in line with official rate reductions.

Wizard’s new home loan portfolio now includes New Zealand’s lowest floating mortgage rates for many years.

Home loan product Previous rate New rate
Smart Choice 6.74% 6.24%
Essentials 6.54% 6.04%
Rate Breaker 6.34% 5.84%

Wizard executive chairman Mark Bouris said that these new low interest rates highlight the tremendous benefits of floating rates over fixed rates. He stressed the company was advising borrowers to mix fixed and floating products to give themselves the flexibility to repay debt more quickly.

“Wizard’s advice is to use the lower rates to pay off mortgages more quickly,” he said. “This is the best savings plan. There will be a temptation with lower rates to borrow more or spend the money saved on repayments on something else.”

Mr Bouris said that for those seeking a new home, especially first time buyers, the current reduction in rates – fueled by global economic trends – was welcome.

“You could say that every cloud has a silver lining,” he said. “Interest rates at historic lows not seen for a long time will allow new homeowners, particularly young people, into the market.”

Wizard has branches in Auckland, Hamilton, Palmerston North, Napier and Christchurch. New offices for Dunedin and Tauranga are planned to open before Christmas with further branches in the new year.

Executive Chairman Mark Bouris says the aggressive branch rollout in New Zealand parallels Wizard’s fast-track development in Australia where it opened its first branch in January 1998, and now has 120 branches in five states.

Wizard has around 4.5% of the Australian new home lending market and is a leading non-bank lender on both sides of the Tasman in terms of growth and volume. Wizard is backed by Kerry Packer’s PBL Group along with international investors represented by Deutsche Asset Management. Wizard has twice been voted the Best Non-Bank Financial Institution by Australian Banking and Finance Magazine.

The company is a ‘mortgage originator’ – it creates its own Wizard-branded loan products financed by Australian Mortgage Securities, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ABN Amro, the fifth largest bank in the world.

Mr Bouris said that although the non-bank sector was less developed in New Zealand than in Australia, it was making significant inroads. Emerging signals that the banks were improving service was a reflection of the impact of non-bank lenders driving greater competition.

Ends

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