Briefs: Hybrids in demand, new Grow board members, BNZ withdraws 7-year mortgage 28 April 2021 4:27AM Banking Day staff Briefs, Hybrids, Appointments, Interest rates, consumer, NAB, Mortgages Fund manager BetaShares has launched an exchange traded fund that will invest in a portfolio of hybrid securities issued by the big banks. The passive fund will track an index of Big Four hybrids. BetaShares already manages more than A$1 billion in an actively managed hybrid ETF. The company said there is strong demand for income returns generated by bank-issued hybrids. Private equity investor John Murphy, who founded Investec Wentworth Private Equity, has taken a stake in business lender Grow Finance and joined the company as chair. Julie Elliott has also joined the Grow board. She is a director of Cash Converters, P&N Bank and is the former chief executive of Bank of Sydney. Grow has originated around A$700 million of loans to SMEs since it was launched in 2015. NAB’s Kiwi subsidiary BNZ has stopped offering seven-year fixed term home loans, as “no customer had asked to take one out since 2018” said BNZ spokesman Sam Durbin, reported by Stuff. The loans, with an interest rate of 5.2 per cent, were the only seven-year fixed term loans offered by a New Zealand bank. The longest fixed-term home loan duration now on offer from BNZ's Big Four rivals is five years, with rates varying from 2.99 per cent to 3.99 per cent.