Consumer group Choice announced its annual Shonky Awards yesterday, highlighting poor product and service quality. Among the recipients was VetPay, a quick access loan product targeted at pet owners looking for funds to pay a vet bill. Product features include a A$49 sign-up fee, a $2.50 fee with each repayment and an annual interest rate of 18.4 per cent. Choice called out the lender for promoting its product as “affordable”. Former chief executive of the New Zealand Government Superannuation Fund Authority, Simon Tyler, has joined the board of Heartland Group subsidiary Heartland Bank. Tyler has also held senior positions at National Bank of New Zealand and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. He joins the board as Heartland is expanding its banking operations, with the purchase of Challenger Bank in Australia and the establishment of an Australian-based non-operating holding company. New Zealand banks are being asked to take ‘a long term view’ when supporting customers as they face an expected increase in the number of households in financial difficulty. As house prices continue to fall, 2 per cent of borrowers are now in negative equity but this “could rise considerably”, the RBNZ warned in its Financial Stability Report yesterday. Interest rates are expected to continue to rise, and if they reach 7 per cent, “around 46 per cent of 2021’s mortgage borrowers would need to spend at least half of their after-tax income on interest payments,” the central bank said. Despite the recent falls, the RBNZ still sees house prices as above sustainable levels and said a “continued gradual decline” remained desirable. And “a sharper or deeper decline remains a plausible outcome”, given the prevailing negative market sentiment.  The RBNZ will launch the consultation process to finalise the elements and design of a new debt-to-income regulatory tool “soon”, said director of prudential policy Kate Le Quesne. After the tool’s design is determined, banks will be given 12 months to get ready, meaning it would not be in use before 2024, she said.