In the week, the government presented a new bill that will make it cheaper for consumers to terminate a tied mortgage loan prematurely.
The current rules, which can be a costly story for private individuals, have been criticized by, among others, the Financial Supervisory Authority, which believes that they primarily benefit the banks.
Those who have tied their loan for a long time and suddenly need to move can get extremely high costs, says Christina Sahlberg at Compricer.
Dare not
A majority of Swedes choose floating interest rates. Christina Sahlberg believes that more people actually want to tie, but do not dare because they do not know how long they will stay.
Especially now that the tied interest rates are lower than the floating ones, she says.
With the new proposal, which has been sent to the Council on Legislation, bank customers will no longer have to pay for the banks' lost interest income, according to the government. Instead, bank customers will only pay for the costs that arise when terminating the loan prematurely.
Christina Sahlberg describes it as a kind of golden middle way.
The banks will get paid for their costs, but not for any risk-taking. There should not be any incentives for people to terminate a loan just to make a profit. It becomes too tricky if people start timing the market all the time, she says.
A completely abolished compensation could also mean a risk that the banks raise interest rates as compensation for the lost compensation, she says.
More stable economy
Christina Sahlberg believes that the effect will be seen immediately when the law changes come into force on July 1 next year.
We will directly see more people tying and it is positive. It can be a major change in society.
In Sweden, mortgage borrowers have very many floating mortgage loans and it is seen as a major threat, she says.
Interest-sensitive households mean that consumption decreases when interest rates rise.
Then Sweden's economy stalls. If more people tie, we get a more stable economy because we become less interest-sensitive.
The banks are already making enormous amounts of money. If this means that the bank does not get exactly as much money, it will still be positive for society.
