ANZ Bank and St George Bank have followed the other major banks in lifting their standard variable home loan rates by 35 basis points.
ANZ and
ANZ’s managing director for personal banking Brian Hartzer said ANZ is now paying up to an additional 20 basis points over and above recent Reserve Bank increases for the short-term wholesale funds it lends to customers and even more for term funds.
“Not only is wholesale funding now coming at a much higher cost but liquidity is continuing to tighten as global markets ration debt funding.
“We have been absorbing a significant part of the increase in the cost of funds, but unless we strike a balance between absorbing some of the increase and passing some on to customers we will ultimately be limited in the amount we are able to lend customers to buy houses or to expand their businesses,” he added.
“We hope global market conditions will ease in the medium term and more normal conditions will return.
“We are committed to passing on reductions in wholesale interest rates by reducing lending rates for customers when that occurs.” Hartzer said.
St George’s chief financial officer Michael Cameron said despite the Bank’s endeavours to absorb the increased funding costs as a result of the impacts of the US sub-prime lending crisis on global liquidity and the wholesale funding markets, St George has had to pass on some of this increased cost to customers.
“Since August last year we have been absorbing a significant increase in our funding costs. While we had hoped that conditions would soon return to normal, in fact we have seen these costs continue to increase,” Cameron said.
Last week, The Commonwealth Bank raised its standard variable home loan rate by 35 basis points to 9.32% from 8.97%.
And Westpac raised its standard variable home loan rate by 30 basis points to 9.27%; the National Australia Bank raised its by 29 basis points to 9.27% rate.
Australian Property Journal
