Australia banks raise loan rates
13 November 2015 by News Desk
Fifteen big financial institutions in Australia have raised their home loan rates, despite the Federal Reserve Bank keeping national rates on hold.
The biggest increase is 0.20% by four lenders – Westpac, Macquarie Bank, Citibank and ME Bank. The average rise has been 0.17%, which will add an extra $33 per month to a $300,000 mortgage.
Bank of Queensland and CUA are the latest to announce variable rate increases to its owner-occupied home loans and their standard variable home loan rates will rise by 0.18% and 0.13% respectively. CUA has also announced a 0.14% fall in one of its home loan products but has raised eight others.
While some major lenders are raising their rates, others are offering lower rates and there are plenty of good deals on offer if you are prepared to ‘shop around’.
The cheapest variable rate home loan is 3.79% by Mortgage House (12-month discounted rate). Among major lenders, the lowest rate is offered by ME Bank (5.00%) while the highest rate is offered by Citibank (5.94%). The average rate is around 5.60%.
