Briefs: New mortgage rate low, BOQ appointments, Smartpay CFO resigns, NZ OCR expectations 22 September 2021 6:40AM Banking Day staff Appointments, Briefs, Interest rates, consumer, Mortgages, Bank lender, Finance regulation New BOQ CRO David Watts Greater Bank has cut its one and two-year fixed mortgage rates for owner occupiers paying principal and interest to 1.59 per cent. The one-year rate was cut by 10 basis points and the two-year rate by 20 bps. Comparison site Canstar said these rates are the lowest in the market. Greater also cut the one and two-year rates for owner occupiers paying interest only – to 1.69 per cent. The lowest variable mortgage rate in the market is 1.77 per cent, which Reduce Home Loans is offering on loans with LVRs of up to 60 per cent. Bank of Queensland has hired a new chief risk officer. David Watts is moving from insurer IAG, where he was group CRO for the past three years, to take up the role. Watts has also worked at NAB and Westpac. Current CRO Adam McAnalen is staying with the bank and will lead parts of the integration with ME Bank. In other appointment news, BOQ has promoted chief product officer Chris Screen to the role of group executive business banking, replacing Fiamma Morton who is leaving the bank. Smartpay chief financial officer Mark Fortugno has handed in his notice and will leave the payments processing company in November. Previous CFO Aidan Murphy will step in in an interim capacity. The RBNZ signalled yesterday it is unlikely to start hiking interest rates as aggressively as expected. Following a speech from Assistant Governor Christian Hawkesby, the RBNZ is now seen as likely to hike just 25 basis points to 0.5 per cent on October 4. Hawkesby said the bank would take ‘considered steps’ and preferred to use the kotuku (white heron), rather than the hawk or dove to characterise its approach to monetary policy. The white heron can either take large steps when it needs to fly, or considered steps when it’s walking slowly along the ground. Large steps were needed in the crisis last year, now smaller steps were needed, Hawkesby said. Financial markets quickly removed any expectations of a 50 bps hike and the NZ dollar dropped.