Mark Wilkshire: Co-Operative Bank CEO on banks dropping their rates after the OCR cut

It’s a battle of the banks after last week's Official Cash Rate cut. 

Most banks dropped their advertised retail loan rates within minutes of last Wednesday's Reserve Bank announcement. 

ANZ and Co-Operative Bank have now dropped their rates even further. 

Co-Operative Chief Executive Mark Wilkshire told Mike Hosking things are getting competitive. 

He says it's good news for homeowners out there, with rates coming down quite quickly. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The banking market getting increasingly competitive. Course posts of the
Reserve Bank move last week on the cash rate. Retail
rates are now falling. A and Z cut some of
their fixed rates yesterday for a second time in a week.
Cooperative in the game as well. They're one year rate,
which is at six three nine is now market lead
at the chief executive, Mark Wiltshare is well, it's Mark,
very good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good morning Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
How competitive is it for a bank at the moment.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, it's good to see good use of home and
it's out the round of rate cuts from the banks
and as you say that leading you rate the one
year so they've come down quite quickly forty point reductions
they start to add up for customers. So you can
certainly see that competition out there now.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Is it hard to generate appetite for debt when I
know full well in a month's time they're coming down
even further.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, I think people will look carefully, you know, how
long they want to fix it for probably the six
months one years where we're seeing most customers go. People
always have a need of course to buy and sell
in a market, so that'll de tape when they pull
the trigger, but people can always sit for a little
bit on a floating while they're looking at those rates
making the decisions.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
What's your feel for what the Reserve Bank did, what's
happening in the retail market at the moment as regards
the economy and moving this country forward.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, I heard one of your earlier commentators, Look, I
think it was a good move to reduce now. Personally,
I was sort of bit surprised to see it happened then,
but it was the right call. So yeah, I think
the economy was starting to hurt, and certainly that some
of the feedback we've had from our customers around the country,
So I think it'll be a relief to go from
having to have increases and your regular payments to now

(01:33):
actually having rate decreases coming through into your pocket. So
I think the timing was really important, and the signals
were that there was quite a lot of confidence in
the economy, so it is certainly timely to get those
rate reductions out.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Good stuff. Make appreciate it very much. Mike Wilshaw, who's
the Cooperative Bank CEO, with us this morning. For more
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