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ANZ announces surprise interest rate hike
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ANZ Bank has announced it will raise its interest rates this month, making it the first of the big four banks to move after the Reserve Bank left the official cash rate steady at 4.25 per cent last week.
From April 20, the bank will increase its standard variable mortgage rate by 6 basis points to 7.42 per cent per annum, while its small business rates also will increase by 6 basis points.
The bank said it took the decision as its funding costs were rising due to increased competition for deposits.
It says the increase will add $3.25 a week to an average home loan of $280,000.
Westpac's standard variable mortgage rate is 7.46 per cent, Commonwealth Bank's is 7.41 per cent and NAB's is 7.31 per cent.
It is the second time this year that ANZ has hiked its rates despite the central bank leaving the cash rate unchanged since December last year.
It added 6 basis points to its variable rates in February.
ANZ Australia chief executive Phil Chronican says the move was necessary to remain profitable.
"We need to make sure that we remain profitable on these lending activities we want to make sure continue to fund business housing in Australia and we need to reflect these increased costs of funds in the rate we charge to our customers," he said.
"We put off doing the full amount back in February because we wanted to mitigate the impact on customers.
Mr Chronican says the bank's funding environment changed "quite dramatically" late last year due to the economic woes in the eurozone.
He says he accepts the impact will be difficult for some customers, the bank's deposit customers have benefited from better rates.
"Given this, and the volatility we have seen in wholesale funding markets, we wanted to ensure these costs were sustained before we acted to pass them on.
We also wanted to pace increases in a way that was manageable for our customers and ensured we were competitively positioned." The surprise move comes as the board of the Reserve Bank faces increasing pressure to ease monetary policy at its next meeting on May 1.
Most economists expect the central bank to cut the cash rate by 25 basis points next month and RBA governor Glenn Stevens hinted last week that such a move was possible after it reviewed inflation figures due later this month.
Earlier this week to boost consumer spending and support business viability and jobs.
Australian Workers' Union national secretary Paul Howes went as far as to call for a review of the charter of the central bank, which he said had consistently made the wrong decision by leaving rates steady all year.
In December, ANZ announced it would break with tradition and review its variable lending rates on the second Friday of each month, independent of the Reserve Bank's cycle.
[ 本帖最后由 dreameratLondon 于 2012-4-14 23:00 编辑 ] |
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