Prime Minister Urges Australians To Shop Around For Credit Cards

Post by NeilMc on June 15, 2009 · Under credit cards, interest rates · Comment 

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says he believes that lenders should be charging reasonable rates of interest on credit card debt, after the government introduced a guarantee on their wholesale funding and deposits.

In October last year the Federal Government introduced measures to offer a three year $700 billion guarantee of deposits held at banks, building societies and credit unions.

During a Chamber of Commerce lunch in Brisbane on Friday one business owner asked the Prime Minister why the banks were able to charge rates of interest between 14 to 35 per cent.

“I think it’s time to rein in some of the financial interest rates that are being charged not only by the majors but the minor banks – in the current climate it’s ridiculous,” the businessman said.

The Prime Minister said that after comparing the rates of more than 300 cards, he found that interest rates differed substantially.

“The rates vary enormously – it really does pay to shop around. We’ve got circumstances which have been underpinned by government policy action against interbank lending by our principal financial institutions. But there should be an appropriate reflection of that across the lending policies adopted by our banks.” Mr. Rudd said.


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