Commonwealth Bank and NAB move early on interest rate rises

• NAB and Commonwealth Bank hiked loan rates
• Reserve Bank tipped to raise rates next week 

Two of Australia’s biggest banks have raised their home loan rates with the worst inflation in 32 years likely to see more official monetary policy tightening in 2023.

The Commonwealth Bank and NAB announced the changes on Wednesday, with the Reserve Bank of Australia widely expected to raise the cash rate again on Tuesday next week.

While fixed rate mortgages for new customers don’t automatically rise in line with RBA moves – like variable rate mortgages – increases are often reflective of the banks expecting more hikes.

The Commonwealth Bank, Australia’s biggest home lender, has increased its one-year fixed rate by 40 basis points to 5.99 per cent.

This increase means a borrower with an average $600,000 would be paying $153 more a month in repayments compared with a customer who signed a contract before the announcement. 

The new monthly repayment of $3,594 is also $1,400 or 63.8 per cent higher than the $2,194 level, for an equivalent 30-year loan, back in May 2021 when the big banks were offering average fixed rates of 1.92 per cent.

NAB has raised its variable rate for borrowers with mortgage deposit of less than 20 per cent deposit by 0.2 percentage points to 6.44 per cent.

For a borrower with an average $600,000 mortgage, this will mean a $78 increase in monthly mortgage repayments to $3,769. 

The banks usually announce increases to their variable rates after the RBA has increased interest rates on the first Tuesday of the month but NAB has done so less than a week beforehand. 

All of Australia’s Big Four banks are expecting another 0.25 percentage point rate hike on March 7 to a new 10-year high of 3.6 per cent.

This would mark the tenth consecutive monthly RBA increase since May 2022, and mark the most severe pace of monetary policy tightening since the Reserve Bank first published a target cash rate in 1990. 

Inflation at a 32-year high of 7.8 per cent – a level well above the RBA’s 2 to 3 per cent target – with Westpac, ANZ and NAB expecting three more rate rises in March, April and May that would take the RBA cash rate to an 11-year high of 4.1 per cent.

RateCity research director Sally Tindall said expectations of more rate rise meant new fixed rate borrowers would be paying higher rates. 

‘Cost of funding pressures, combined with a now widespread expectation there will be three more cash rate hikes in as many months, are likely to have triggered this rise,’ she said.