Alastair Jeffrey, chief executive of non-conforming mortgage lender Bluestone told
The Australian that "all lenders' cost of capital has gone up" and likened any lenders ignoring this point to the command of the Titanic.
"The reality is that reflecting a higher cost of funding in the retail products is disciplined margin maintenance, and not doing so would be really quite negligent," he wrote in an email to the newspaper.
"After years of cheap debt and vanishing margins in the industry, now is the time that all lenders need to be carefully ensuring that their business models are sound, and margin is preserved."