(Yicai Global) Jan. 14 -- A staffer at Shanghai Rural Commercial Bank has denied speculation that the lender has raised its maximum discount on mortgages for first-time buyers to 10 percent below the benchmark rate.

"We still set a maximum 5 percent discount for first-home mortgages, which is within the guidance provided by the People's Bank of China," the worker said. "We will actually raise interest rates for barely qualified customers in accordance with management policies, as we adopt different prices for different customers."

The central bank-fixed base lending rate for loans of over five years is currently 4.9 percent. The PBOC cut the overall reserve requirement ratio at the beginning of this year in a bid to increase the amount of cash banks have on hand to lend, which some sources said would likely lead to lower mortgage rates this year.

But many banks, including SRCB, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Bank of Shanghai and China Merchants Bank, still offer the same 5 percent discount on most first-home mortgages as before, Yicai Global discovered after speaking with credit managers at several Shanghai branches while posing as a homebuyer.

Banks are lending less to first-time buyers as fewer people qualify for mortgages under thetightened real estate regulation, according to a banking insider. The first-home rate was once as high as 15 percent, but got slashed when credit policies became stricter, he added.

"Even a lower mortgage rate would have little impact on the real estate market overall," Zhang Dawei, chief analyst at Hong Kong-based Centaline Property, told Yicai Global. "The overall RRR cut may trim the first-home rate, but that's just one factor."

He believes that as long as credit remains hard to come by and the definition of a first house stay the same, small changes in interest rates will have limited effect on the market.

Editor: James Boynton