Report

Federated Farmers Banking Survey May 2020

• Most farmers remain satisfied with their banks, and farmers' satisfaction with their banks improved over the past six months, largely driven by non-dairy farm groups. Satisfaction had slipped as a trend since the survey began in August 2015 and this is the first positive change since then.
• The current average mortgage rates have decreased since November 2019 (by 0.4 percentage points) showing the drop in OCR has been passed on to many farmers.  Average overdraft interest rates have also decreased.
• There has been a decrease in perceptions of bank pressure, with 19% of farmers perceiving they have come under undue pressure, down 4 percentage points on November 2019. Arable farmers feel the most under pressure from their banks (28%).
• Satisfaction with bank communication continues to be stable, although slowly declining since August 2017.
• Although two-thirds of farmers have up-to-date budgets for the current 2019/20 season, only one-third of farms have an up-to-date budget for the future season.