Controversial break fees gone?

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One mortgage broker found recently that the controversial fees banks charged when a client breaks a fixed term mortgage haven't been charged recently.

Monday, February 20th 2012, 6:44AM 5 Comments

by Jenny Ruth

Bruce Patten at Loan Market says a client of his needed to break a two-year fixed loan last week.

The loan had been placed with Westpac at 6.15% in December. Westpac's current advertised two-year fixed rate is 5.79%.

Patten says all Westpac asked for was a $300 administration fee.

He had a similar experience with ANZ Bank last year - a client had taken out a three-year fixed loan with ANZ at 6.85% last August but then in November decided to break the loan and sought full repayment.

In November, ANZ's advertised three-year fixed rate was 6.45%.

Both banks deny any policy change and offered no other explanation. "We haven't made any changes to our policies," says a Westpac spokeswoman.

An ANZ spokesman says: "Neither ANZ nor The National Bank have changed break cost formulas and continue to apply the existing methodology."

Break fees became headline news back in 2009 when interest rates dropped sharply as the global financial crisis hit.

ANZ and Westpac were among a group of banks who based their break fees on changes in wholesale interest rates, and which therefore tend to charge higher fees than other banks, such as ASB, SBS and BNZ. A Westpac case which made headlines in August 2009 involved a break fee of $97,000 on a $735,000 mortgage.

However, an investigation by the Commerce Commission concluded in May 2010 by announcing the methodology ANZ and Westpac used "is likely to produce a fee which is reasonable" and which complied with the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act.

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