BNS to cut mortgage, base rates
Published:Wednesday | April 27, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Scotiabank Jamaica will be announcing a new round of cuts to its base lending rate as well as at least one mortgage product, to take effect in May.
The base rate, which is already the lowest in the commercial banking sector, will be cut by one-point from 16.75 per cent to 15.75 per cent, director of public, corporate and government affairs, Joylene Griffiths-Irving, confirmed last night.
The banking group's mortgage subsidiary, Scotia Jamaica Building Society (SJBS), will also cut rates by as much as 3.25 points for new homeowners - from 14 per cent to 10.75 per cent - but this offer, which would become the lowest in the market, is open, Griffiths-Irving said, to just a select group of professionals and university students.
And the 10.75 per cent rate would stay fixed for just 36 months, she said.
The closest rate to the Scotia loan is the 11.95 per cent on offer from GSB Credit Union, whose mortgage loans are backed by Jamaica Mortgage Bank under a J$5-billion secondary mortgage market facility introduced by the state agency in mid-April.
With J$8.4 billion in mortgage loans at March 2011, SJBS held less than 10 per cent of the market, narrowly outperforming FirstCaribbean Building Society, whose J$8-billion portfolio was the smallest of the four players.
The mortgage loan market was last estimated by the Bank of Jamaica at J$86 billion.