Get mortgage free faster

Don’t be tempted by lifestyle inflation – if you get a pay rise, consider putting extra money into your home loan instead of buying more stuff.

Bumping up your payments by as little as $20 a fortnight can help shorten the term of your mortgage, meaning you’ll pay it off faster and end up paying less in interest.

If you've got a variable rate loan, you won’t be charged any fees for additional payments. But if you’ve got a fixed rate home loan there are limits as to how much you can increase repayments each year. See the early repayment scenarios at the bottom of our rates and fees page for some guidance.

If you come into some money or manage to build up your savings, putting that on your home loan could reduce the time it takes to pay off your mortgage as well as how much you end up paying in interest.

Lump sum repayments on a variable home loan

With a variable home loan (also known as floating home loan) you're able to make as many additional payments as you'd like. You can easily do this on the mobile app.

Lump sum repayments on a fixed rate home loan

If you have a fixed rate home loan, check with us that you won’t be paying more than 5% of your home loan balance in a year. If you do, you could be charged fixed rate break costs.

If you've split your home loan into more than one fixed term loan, for example you have some fixed for one year and some fixed for three years, the early repayment limit will apply separately to each fixed loan.

Lump sum payment on a fixed rate home loan needs to be at least $1,000.

How to increase your repayments or make a lump sum payment

Send a secure mail to our online customer service team through internet banking or our mobile app, or give us a call on 0800 000 654 and we’ll increase your regular payments or move a lump sum across for you. You can also use our mobile app to make a lump sum payment on your variable home loan.

If having a decent amount of money in a savings account helps you sleep better at night, think about putting a part of your home loan in an offset home loan (also known as an offset mortgage).

With this you can link your Kiwibank savings and everyday accounts to your home loan and only pay interest on the difference between them.

For example, if you have $50,000 in your offset home loan and $30,000 in your linked savings and everyday accounts, you’ll only pay interest on $20,000 of your offset loan.

Your savings are still separate and you can make withdrawals whenever you like, but the more you save, the less interest you pay on your linked home loan. Read more about offset home loans.

If you’ve got a floating rate and interest rates fall, keep your repayments the same. The lower interest rates mean you’ll be paying more off your home loan, but you won’t feel it in your pocket because you’re not handing over any extra money.

If you have your whole home loan locked into a fixed rate, consider mixing things up when the fixed term comes to an end. Putting some of your home loan on a fixed rate and some on a variable rate means you’ll have more flexibility to make lump sum payments or increase your regular repayments if your circumstances change or interest rates fall.

You could also opt to fix part of your home loan for different amounts of time - so you could have some locked in for one year and some for two or three years, or longer.