The AFR carries a story today about Suncorp cutting back high LVR loans:
With regulators pressuring banks not to cut credit standards amid fierce competition for customers, new chief executive John Nesbitt said on Thursday the bank was trying to be a “wise, calm head in a pretty hot market”.
Suncorp, Australia’s fifth-largest bank, has recently made a significant cut in its writing of new mortgages with loan-to-valuation ratios of 90 per cent and Mr Nesbitt said it was being careful towards loans with LVRs between 80 and 90 per cent.
“We’re particularly mindful that where the market is sitting today, you’ve got a low interest rate environment, it’s inevitable, given global markets and where the Australian yield curve is positioned, that rates are going to go up,” he said in an interview.
Actually, it’s inevitable that rates go lower but let that slide (I can’t vouch for 30 years after all). It’s not impossible that one banker may choose to be more prudent than others in a heated cycle, it happens occasionally, but finance theory generally suggests that all banks lend as much as possible all of the time, so we may be seeing the hand of the regulator here, with Suncorp deciding to lead for the brand benefit.
