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Date Published : Tuesday, January 08, 2008
One of Australia's largest banks has followed in the footsteps of the National Australia Bank (NAB) and raised interest rates on mortgages.
Blaming the global credit crunch, ANZ has increased the rates of interest on its fixed-rate mortgages by 0.25 per cent to 8.54 per cent.
The rate hike will add an estimated $30 per month on to a $200,000 mortgage and is a further sign of the major banks' growing unrest with the Reserve Bank.
According to the Daily Telegraph, last month ANZ chairman Charles Goode claimed that in the result of any negative fallout from the global credit crisis, the bank would need to "pass these higher funding costs on to more of our customers".
The move by the Melbourne-based company, the fourth largest banking group in Australia, to increase interest rates on home loans comes after NAB raised its standard variable mortgage rate by 0.12 per cent last week, making it a miserable start to the year for Australian homeowners.
As a result of the rate changes, treasurer Wayne Swan urged banks and other financial institutions to be mindful of the families that such changes affect before altering rates.
However, Mr Swan added: "NAB's rise is a direct consequence of the US subprime mortgage crisis."
A number of Australia's largest banks told the publication that they were not considering altering their own rates on mortgages at the moment, with a St George Bank spokesman saying that "we will wait to see what the market does over the next couple of weeks."
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