Variable mortgage rates down in the September quarter 20 October 2014 4:11PM John Kavanagh The Reserve Bank has not changed the cash rate in over a year but competitive pressure is forcing lenders to keep their variable mortgage rates under review.According to comparison site RateCity, 26 lenders cut variable mortgage rates on 74 products during the September quarter, with an average reduction of 12 basis points.People's Choice Credit Union made the biggest change, cutting 50 bps off its Home Loan Package (for loans up to A$250,000).AMO Group cut 34 bps off its Variable Home Loan, Wide Bay Australia cut 26 bps off its Freedom Package Loan and Aussie cut 25 bps off its Optimiser Plus Loan (for loans above $500,000).Among the big banks, Westpac cut ten bps off its Premier Advantage Rocket Repay Home Loan (for loans above $750,000), National Australia Bank cut 11 bps off its Base Variable Rate Discount Loan and ANZ cut six bps off its Simplicity Plus Loan.Other lenders who cut variable rates during the quarter included Homeloans, HSBC, IMB, Macquarie Bank, State Custodians and Yellow Brick Road.Most of these lenders now offer standard variable rates below five per cent. The average variable rate of all home loans in the RateCity database was 5.37 per cent on October 1 - a reduction of four bps.