The banking sector reactivates the trade war over mortgages. The new rate reduction carried out by the European Central Bank (ECB) of 0.25 percentage points left the deposit facility at 3.5%, so both loans and savings products are seeing their conditions modified .
Specifically, since last September 12, several entities have lowered their mortgage loans: from EVO Banco, to MyInvestor, ING, Ibercaja or Bankinter, all of them are adapting to the downward trend in the Euribor. According to Kelisto’s personal finance spokesperson, Pedro Ruiz, “this is just the beginning. We will see with the drop in the Euribor and possible short-term rate cuts as more entities join the discounts.”
The escalation that began in 2022 caught many customers by surprise. After years of negative rates, reaching 4% meant that the variable mortgage lost followers, but the current context once again invites change by having lower rates.
In the case of EVO, it currently has one of the lowest spreads on the market, since it has an offer of Euribor + 0.48%. BBVA’s is somewhat higher, since the spread is + 0.6% and a TIN is 1.99% the first year. That of OpenBank equals that of BBVA in the rest of the years, but the NIR is lower (1.60%) as long as the established conditions are met, such as direct debiting payrolls and taking out home insurance.
The Euribor forecast for 2024 and the following year suggests that entities will continue to lower interest rates. Funcas estimates that next year it will have an average of 2.5%, just as Bankinter and CaixaBank put it at 2.55%, so the dance of clients between fixed and variable mortgages will continue.
