Vince Talotta via Getty Images In this file photo, a for sale sign stands in front of a house in Toronto. Mortgage rates are coming down in Canada after the Bank of Canada dropped its key lending rate on Wednesday.

TORONTO ― Several Canadian banks and financial institutions have dropped their prime lending rate by 50 basis points to 3.45 per cent, effective March 5.

The moves by the Royal Bank, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Scotiabank, Bank of Montreal, CIBC and the Desjardins Group match the Bank of Canada’s decision Wednesday to drop its key lending rate by 0.5 percentage points, which was itself a matching of what the U.S. Federal Reserve had cut a day earlier over the novel coronavirus.

The banks’ prime rates determine the interest rate on variable mortgages and home equity lines of credit (HELOCs), among other things. Borrowers of these types of loans will be paying less interest as part of their monthly payments.

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