– Banks often don’t give you full cut in interest rate

We had two rapid interest rate cuts in one week in March, and on Thursday of last week, Norges Bank lowered the key rate to a record low of 0 percent.

It wasn’t long before the first bank announced that they wanted to cut mortgage rates, and more and more banks are reporting interest rate cuts.

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As you can read from the information banks send to customers and the media, lowering the interest rate is described as, for example: “Reducing interest rates with until 0.4 percentage points ».

But that bank is cutting until A certain percentage point does not mean that this is necessarily something that you will enjoy, at least not to the fullest, and at least not for all banks.

This shows a survey of the Renteradar service, not quite recent, which differs from other mortgage loan comparison services in that, in addition to recovering list price from banks also get interest rates and loan terms like other borrowers actually has.

– Large gap between banks

This is accomplished by logging into Renteradar with your BankID on mobile, and this gives them access to the terms and interest rates of your loan.

In addition to seeing what your terms are at your current bank compared to other banks, your data is also used as a basis to show interest rates as they really are, and not just as they appear in the banks’ list prices.

– Our analysis shows that there was a big gap between banks as to how much interest rates fell, despite the same being reported, says Sindre Noss at Renteradar.no to Dinside.

The interest rate radar indicates that most banks reported an interest rate cut of up to 0.85 percentage points, but they claim that, according to their analysis, only a few banks actually cut rates as promised.

The interest rate radar states that only a minority of clients received the full interest rate reduction at DNB, Sparebank 1 Nord-Norge, SR-Bank and Sparebank 1 Buskerud / Vestfold, while almost all Nordea clients, Sbanken and Sparebank 1 Østlandet received the full interest rate reduction.

– So there are big variations between banks as to what they actually cut. Therefore, it is important that you, as a mortgage customer, keep track of whether your bank has actually granted you the full interest rate cut. Although banks are now reporting that they cut mortgage rates by as much as 0.4 percentage points, that does not mean that they will receive lower interest rates by 0.4 percentage points, Noss notes.

The following figure shows when and how much banks actually lowered interest rates relative to the interest rate they announced. The analysis is based on 1286 observations / users. Source: Renteradar.no

– They can be quite large deviations

Business economist Hallgeir Kvadsheim, known as the “Luxus Trap” expert and who runs the Pengeverkstedet.no website, confirms that there may be discrepancies between what banks report in interest rate cuts and what they actually do. customers are given in interest rate cuts:

– Yes, there may be quite large deviations. Some banks are 100 percent transparent and have the same interest as all customers in the same category. While other banks have more individual rates, like the DNB, that should be followed closely, Kvadsheim tells Dinside.

– Banks say they reduced to a certain percentage point, but may not all reduce it, he emphasizes, referring to the Renteradar survey.

“It is something that also makes that service very good,” he says, adding:

– I know the service quite well and I am very excited. It’s great when it comes to simplifying the process of negotiating and changing banks, because the most important thing is to give you an overview of your own interest rates, because, in fact, not many people know this.

– It is often the first problem if you want to do an interest comparison, you don’t know what the interest rate is. Here, it brings out your interest rate and loan terms, making it a “game changer” in this market, Kvadsheim tells Dinside.

It also points to another benefit of the service; You receive a standardized email with your information that you can send to the bank.

– So this is a great tool for negotiating with the bank without having to call the bank to do so, which does a good job for the cloud of conflicts.

DNB: – It’s not good enough

We have contacted DNB for comment on Renteradar’s investigation. We’ve also asked what percentage of your customers received the maximum interest rate cut on the previous interest rate cut and how many will get it now.

In addition, we have asked why not all clients receive maximum interest rate cuts and what determines who receives them and who does not.

Mars Anundsen Vilming, DNB’s communications advisor, tells Dinside that Renteradar’s research, in his opinion, does not have a large enough basis to be statistically significant.

According to Renteradar, there are just over 700 DNB clients who have shared information about their own loan terms before and after the previous interest rate cut, and who are included in the aforementioned survey.

For our other questions, Vilming says that DNB has cut interest rates three times in eight weeks and that they have never had lower mortgage rates than they do now.

negative interest rates?

– Most of the clients have received the total cut of the interest rate and have very competitive prices. As the largest bank in Norway, we have many different clients with different loan products. Therefore, some adjustments will always be needed in the event of a change in interest rates, Vilming says, and continues:

– Most of our clients have received the full record cut of 0.85 percentage points after the first two interest rates announced in March and April. Those who got a lower cut than this already had a very low and competitive interest rate on their loan.

She emphasizes that they have now announced a further cut in the interest rate of up to 0.40 percentage points.

“This time, too, most clients will benefit from the full interest rate cut,” Vilming told Dinside.

– wait a minute

After Norges Bank has lowered its key interest rate and several banks have announced that they are going to lower their interest rates on private mortgages, it is time to see what interest rate you have at your bank, and perhaps negotiate an interest rate. lower interest.

Kvadsheim says you need to pay attention to checking interest rates now, compared to what you’re comparing – it will still be some time before the interest rate cut appears in your loan data and it won’t compare the new interest rates. interest from other banks with old interest rates at your bank:

– The interest rate you have today will be lower. You need to make sure you get the lowest interest rate possible, Kvadsheim notes, and also says it may be easier to do that job in a couple of weeks when more people have updated their interest rates.

However, the interest rates for new loans need to be updated already, for those who have reported interest rate cuts.

– But I think maybe I would postpone that job last week. So you’ve also been told what your new interest rate will be, and then it can change, says Kvadsheim.

– It is best to get a specific offer from another bank, and not just refer to interest rates. Then you can risk having your bank verify that it is not certain that you will receive that interest rate. But if you have received specific offers from a bank, it is not something your old bank can argue with, and they should consider whether they will match you or let you go.