Australia's largest home loan lender has revealed the surprising number of homeowners who leapt at the opportunity to reduce their repayments after February's interest rate drop. It was the first bit of mortgage relief since the Reserve Bank's (RBA) rate hike cycle, which saw the cash rate jump more than a dozen times.

You'd think that high interest rates teamed with a cost-of-living crisis, there would be a huge uptick in the number of repayment reduction requests. However, Commonwealth Bank (CBA) found only 14 per cent of eligible customers asked for a decrease after the February 18 RBA meeting.

“For those who did not reduce their direct debit repayments, they may now be making additional repayments on their mortgage, which could help them to pay off their loan faster,” CBA's Home Buying Executive General Manager, Michael Baumann, said.

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“These additional payments will also increase the available balance of their loan accounts and customers may have the flexibility to redraw the available balance at any time, for example, if they experience an unexpected cost.”

Eligible customers were those who weren't paying the lowest amount possible for their loans.

If you wanted to reduce your repayments after the RBA lowered the cash rate from 4.35 per cent to 4.10 per cent, you had to contact your bank via the app, call or visit a branch in person.

Some banks would do it automatically, whereas others put the onus on customers to action it.

Someone with a $500,000 mortgage would have seen around $80 in savings per month as a result of that move from the central bank.

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Why paying the same amount can save thousands

Finance expert Ben Nash told Yahoo Finance that it could work out in your favour in the long run if you kept your repayments where they were at before the February RBA meeting.

"There's no doubt that some people have been struggling to make ends meet, and they are looking at the extra money that's there.

"But if your budget is balanced and you can afford to do something with the money, then it will be good to do that."

Nash used an example of a $711,000 loan and said just one 0.25 per cent rate cut would result in $110 per month in savings.

But if you didn't change the amount you're currently paying, you could shave two years off the loan and save $66,580 in interest over the lifetime of the mortgage.