Friday, July 11, 2008

ING leads the pack, yet again

Well, after Wednesday's announcement of changes to mortgage insurance in Canada, ING has already changed their rules. Although the tighter requirements don't take effect nationwide until October 15, ING's mortgage glossary currently indicates the following:
Amortization Period

The amount of time it would take to repay a loan in full based on the payment amount at the selected payment frequency and current interest rate. At ING DIRECT, you may choose mortgage amortizations from 1 to 35 years. Remember: the longer the amortization, the less each payment will be but the more interest you will pay overall.

...

Down Payment

An amount of money you put towards the purchase of your home, which influences the mortgage amount you require. A down payment of 20% or more will determine whether your mortgage needs mortgage default insurance. If your down payment is less than 20% of your purchase price, your mortgage is high-ratio and needs mortgage default insurance. If your down payment is 20% or more of the purchase price, your mortgage is conventional and does not need mortgage default insurance. At ING DIRECT we require a minimum down payment of 5% from non-borrowed funds.
ING was the first bank to acknowledge the TFSA, and they're out front again on this new development.

Whatever else you may think of the company and its practices, they are outstanding at differentiating themselves from the competition.

2 comments:

dawger said...

They're the first to move on things that won't take effect for months! So what does it matter?

Anonymous said...

Fair enough, but they made the change more than four months early. My point was just that when they see something coming, they tend to act on it sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately, this also applies to dropping interest rates on their savings account.