Changes to investment home lending

Changes to investment home lending

UniBank will temporarily stop offering new investment home loans, as of today. 

We are withdrawing our investment home loan products for new applicants* for a short period, in an attempt to curb our success in this sector, and meet the requirements of the regulator, APRA.

APRA (The Australian Prudential and Regulatory Authority) has recently required that all financial institutions limit their investment lending growth to 10%, and we have been working closely with them on managing the growth of our investment lending portfolio.     

Strong demand from our members has meant our investment home loan growth has not slowed in line with the regulator’s expectations, despite the bank applying a number of pricing and loan serviceability disincentives during 2016.

We will be monitoring this closely over the coming weeks, and will advise members as soon as new investment home loans will again be available.    

 “In any other context, the strong demand for our investment home loan products would be very pleasing, but the bank takes its responsibility to the regulator extremely seriously, so we have proactively made the decision to temporarily withdraw from investment lending to new business as of today,”  UniBank General Manager Ross Moulton explains.

It is business as usual for UniBank’s owner occupier home loans.  We have today announced market leading rates on our 3, 4 and 5 year fixed rate home loans.  

*Current investment loan applications

All members who have an existing investment home loan with us are unaffected. 

If you have made an investment home loan application to the bank, or received an Approval in Principle, up to close of business on Tuesday 24 May 2016, your application will be processed as normal, subject to it meeting the bank’s usual lending criteria.

We’re sorry for any inconvenience for members who are considering approaching us for an investment home loan.  We will resume offering these as soon as possible, and will advise via our website and loans teams.

If you have any questions or need more information, call our branch on 1800 864 864.