Switching to interest only

Number of home borrower latecomers on repayment terms has increased as Commonwealth Bench moves them from interest only related Mortgages to advances that repay capital and interest. However, the bank's CEO, Matt Comyn, said that clients were able to get payment back on course by reducing their expenses elsewhere. Welcoming the recent slowdown in house price levels in Sydney, he said they were good for fiscal sustainability and told analysis that this was "clearly a good thing" in the longer run.

Announcing a $9. 23 billion total annual gain that failed to meet consensus expectations, CBA pointed to a 10-base point rise in the number of buyers more than 90 days later on their home loans repayments- from 0. 60 percent to 0. 70 percent of the borrowers. "Commenting to the Australian Financial Review, Mr Comyn said that the switchover effect has resulted in an increased 90-day backlog.

" Reserve Bank, which on Tuesday let the Official Currency exchange rate remain unchanged at 1. 5 percent, has said mortgages could go up between 30 percent and 40 percent for some interest rates borrower who need to pay back capital and interest. In May, RBA Assistant Guy Debelle said: "While some borrower will clearly fight with it, we expect that most will be able to cope with the adaptation.

" Commenting on this opinion, Mr Comyn said he did not anticipate that backlogs would continue to worsen and that "customers would adapt to the new payment over time". An analyst asked Mr Comyn about the increasing backlogs during the results brief, with Macquarie's Victor German viewing the figure as a "historical early indication of deterioration in loan quality".

The CBA is the biggest home bank in Australia, with 1.5 million home credit home bank deposits totaling $374 billion. 64 percent of these borrower are owner-occupiers. 30 percent of CBA mortgages clients are only dependent on interest rate borrowing, compared to 39 percent a year ago, when the regulatory authority introduced ceilings to slow the market for hotspots.

Approximately 27 percent of CBA interest rates, which are only for borrower use, are likely to change to principal and interest rate debt in fiscal 2019; CBA said that the vast majority of borrower groups are capital market buyers "and those with large cash caches. Saying that it writes to interest only borrower 12 month before resetting their loan to alert them of the changes, the bench said 79 percent of the buyers who come to the end of an only-interst period have an opportunity of extending the only-interest-only conditions for another year.

CBA also said that the rise in mortgages backlogs reflected "stress pockets" in the business sector "as some homes had difficulty with increasing living expenses and restricted earnings growth". Areas of the nation where the greatest stresses occurred were in Western Australia, where the banks saw "continued weakness in the external subway and region areas" rather than in extractive cities, said Mr Comyn, and in the Northern Territory, where their small volume of paper was affected by increasing joblessness, when resources began to be finalised.

CBA writes more credit through its offices than through agents to mitigate exposure. In the second half of the year, 63 per cent took out credit through its own channel, significantly more than the 45 per cent figure for other banking institutions. When asked about the discount of interest to gain shares of the building savings markets, Mr Comyn said: "There was quite a lot of competitive activity in the building savings market".

Its home equity loan increased by 3. 7 percent over the year versus 5. 6 percent for the system. Each loan is rated with an interest cushion of 2.25 per cent above customer interest, with a 7.25 per ect. p.a. min. loan margin, and the credit institution has tightened its monitoring procedure.

The CBA will continue to groom mortgage in NSW, where real estate values have dropped the most. However, Mr. Comyn said that he is not concerned about the slowdown in housing costs. Last weeks Corelogic dates showed that housing prices have dropped 1. 6 percent over last year in the biggest decrease since 2012.

A CBAs slide pointed to awards in Sydney that were down 4. 5 percent last year after they had risen 13. Five percent in the last three years. "This slowing of housing costs and a modest overall decline is a good thing from a long-term viewpoint of fiscal stability," said Mr Comyn.

" For the coming year, CBA expects mortgages to grow by around 4 percent. "This is lower than we've seen - but it's a good thing," Mr. Comyn said.