New Delhi: A bank in Denmark-Jyske Bank- is offering home loans at negative 0.5 (-0.5) percent, which basically means it is paying its customers to borrow money to buy homes.
Jyske Bank has announced that people will be able to take a 10 year mortgage with an interest rate of 0.5 percent. This will be a fixed rate mortgage, it said. Thus, the customer taking such loans will pay back less than what they borrowed.
A negative 0.5 percent interest rate on 10 year mortgage would mean that if a Rs 20 lakh loan is taken and paid back in full in 10 years, the borrower would pay back only Rs 19.9 lakh.
The move by Jyske Bank comes close on the heels of some of the other European banks offering home loans at zero percent interest rate.
Taking credit has never been this cheap in recent history. The costs associated with mortgages have been coming down for some time now across the world.
Even in India, a host of commercial banks like State Bank Of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Bank Of Baroda, Bank OF Maharashtra, Oriental Bank Of Commerce, Bank of India, Union Bank and others have reduced their lending rates for home loans recently.