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There’s a busy two weeks ahead on the home front. Literally…
Next Tuesday’s RBA decision on official rates will attract its usual round of speculation, with most commentators now predicting a rate cut.
However, for borrowers it’s no longer a matter of your usual game of wait-and-see in relation to how your finances may be impacted by events of the first Tuesday of each month. Read the rest of this entry »
Some of the most recent news in technology circles includes an app that any mobile service providers (such as tradesmen for example) can have on their iphone or ipad that allows them to operate as an ATM, by attaching a device to their phone or tablet which works with the app to process payment transactions from virtually anywhere.
Who would have thought it was possible even ten years ago?
However, as convenient as it may seem to be able to pay for goods or services in the middle of virtually anywhere by using your credit card, does this mean that the overriding need for convenience has now replaced consumerism as our next potential financial problem? Read the rest of this entry »
Further affirmation of the importance of our sector arrived last night in the form of Resi Mortgage Corporation being recognised as Australia’s pre-eminent non-bank lender at the prestigious Australian Lending Awards dinner held in Sydney.
If we added up all the column inches devoted to what the banks have been up to over the last two weeks there’d be enough of an equivalent media spend to feed a small nation.
And yet – after all has been said and done, has anything really changed? Read the rest of this entry »
Competition is defined as the process of trying to win or do better than others, which by its very virtue, is what drives us as human beings. Read the rest of this entry »
According to the latest news coming from various economists, there is the increasing likelihood that the Reserve Bank may announce another rate cut in early February.
And this is more great news for many mortgage holders. Read the rest of this entry »
Sticking to twelve simple financial resolutions in 2012 can potentially save you thousands of dollars each year as well as the opportunity to redefine your financial plans.
And much of this is really just a matter of working with what you already have, by restructuring your existing arrangements so they work more effectively for you. Read the rest of this entry »
I love Christmas.
I love the trimmings, the trappings, the ribbon and the wrappings. So at the risk of not wanting to sound like the Grinch who stole Christmas…..
While you’re contemplating how much turkey/seafood/pudding you’ve consumed over the Christmas period – why not use some of that downtime to do an audit of your personal finances? Read the rest of this entry »
Talking to some older folk over the last week about times when interest rates were around eighteen percent and I am reliably told that there are many watching with almost amusement at the goings on in relation to the continued will they/won’t they pass that rate cut onto borrowers guessing game.
Because it was back in their day that a bank not passing on a rate cut was almost the rule, rather than the exception.
And with interest rates getting up to eighteen percent around that time, that was a whole lot of sweat going on!
So that generation can certainly add some perspective to what’s happening in the current times.
But there is one difference now. Thanks to competitors such as non-bank lenders, credit unions and building societies continuing to be a force in the mortgage marketplace, rate cuts are now more routinely passed on in full to borrowers.
And the reality is, this pattern now is largely due to the continuing existence of alternative lenders, combined with people exercising their right to choose.
After the 1990’s, benchmark rates came down by almost two percent after non-bank lenders such as Resi entered the market and have remained lower largely because our sector of the market continues to be around.
Sure – the big banks will continued to be pressured, whether it’s by government, borrowers or through the existence of other alternative lenders to more carefully consider their decision on rates, so that won’t change.
But at the end of the day, borrowers are now in a position where if they don’t like what’s happening, they can take their bat and ball and… move.
With continued reports of consumers becoming more conservative with their spending and making a concerted effort to pay down debt, could we be heading back to the future? Read the rest of this entry »