RBC will become the first Big 5 bank in more than a year to advertise a variable-rate mortgage under prime rate.
The company just announced it’s cutting its “special offer” variable rate to prime – 0.10%. The remaining big banks will probably follow suit soon.
RBC’s new rate is mostly a game of catch-up. More deeply-discounted variables have been available from other lenders and brokers for several weeks now.
Even more interesting, RBC said it’s raising its Homeline HELOC rate (for new customers) back up to prime + 0.75%! RBC led the market back in October when it cut its secured HELOC rate down to prime + 1/2%.
I have heard of people being offered Prime on the HELOC by RBC….even recently.
Rob, I guess they can do that if they want?
Hi Adam,
It’s so difficult to confirm these things because it’s all branch-by-branch. We know two very high volume RBC reps and they said P+0.50% was as low as they were allowed to go. At the same time, I’ve seen online rumors of lower.
I can say this for certain: The odds of getting below prime + 0.50% at RBC just went way down.
Cheers,
Rob
As Rob says, these guys are playing catch-up. ING DIRECT (which I consider a major player) has posted their variable at 2.05 for a while now.