Hang Seng Bank cuts rebates but keeps mortgage rates steady
Hang Seng Bank, which overtook Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) as the second-largest mortgage lender in the city last month, said it would reduce cash rebates on its mortgages.
Beginning on Monday, the bank will lower the cash rebate by 0.3 percentage points. Homebuyers with loans of HK$800,000 or more could get a rebate of up to 0.5 per cent.
Peggy Tam Lai-king, the bank's head of secured lending, said the bank kept its mortgage rate unchanged and that good customers could still get a mortgage loan as low as 2.9 per cent below prime or 4.35 per cent in real terms.
Most of Hong Kong's lenders raised their mortgage rates after the prime rate was cut in September.
'We want to have a flexibility which will help us attract good customers amid the active property market,' she added.
Residential property transactions totalled more than 11,400 last month, of which secondary market sales reached 9,727, an increase of 46.5 per cent from September.
However, primary market transactions fell 22.1 per cent to 1,717, according to a Midland Realty survey. Meanwhile, Hang Seng Bank's share of the mortgage market rose to 10.2 per cent last month from 9.6 per cent in September, surpassing Standard Chartered, whose share fell to 9.3 per cent from 12.4 per cent, according to mReferral Mortgage Brokerage Services.
BOC (Hong Kong), whose market share rose to 14.2 per cent from 13.8 per cent, retained its leading position.
The property brokerage said BOCHK and Hang Seng had gained some market share at the expense of major rivals in the home loan market who had raised their mortgage rates in September after the prime rate cut.
HSBC moved from being fourth in September to third last month as its market share rose from 9.5 per cent to 9.7 per cent.
Standard Chartered fell to fourth position from second.
For the first 10 months, BOCHK still kept the lead with the largest share in the residential mortgage market, followed by HSBC.
Cashing in
Hang Seng Bank's mortgage loan to good customers is prime minus 2.9%
Share of market leader BOC (Hong Kong) of home loans: 14.2%
