Hire purchase interest rates are up by about 0.25%!

June 2, 2010 at 2:11 pm By Paul Tan 

According to a report by StarBiz, hire purchase interest rates have gone up by about a quarter of a percent early this week. An EON Bank officer told the StarBiz reporter that hire-purchase loans are now at the following rates:

The previous rates were between 3.25% to 3.5% for non-national cars and between 3.75% to 4% for national cars. These rates are a good 1% higher than that of the rates not too long ago where you could get a loan for a new non-national car for 2.8%. For example, taking a loan from Public Bank for BMW 5 series E39 two years ago for just 3.75% and that’s for a (then) 11 year old non-national European marque. Another case buying the same model of E39 last year and paying nearly 6% of interest!

A 1% hike could cost a user an extra installment amount of between RM50 to RM100 a month, with the upper end not seeming like a significantly amount when you are taking a loan for over RM100,000 and paying over RM1,500 a month although it is still money.