ANZ raises credit card rates

ANZ has increased the purchase rate on all its consumer credit cards by 15 basis points. The rate on the bank's popular Frequent Flyer Platinum Visa is now 19.89 per cent.

ANZ made its move on April 27 - just a few days before the Reserve Bank announced its widely anticipated reduction in the cash rate.

Credit card rate movements obey their own unorthodox rules. According to Reserve Bank data, the average purchase rate on a standard card has remained steady at 19.7 per cent since November 2010.

While it might not be a complete surprise to see a bank put up card rates when it is dropping other lending rates, it is surprising that ANZ made no disclosure about the change.

Last December the bank introduced a new rate-setting policy, saying that it would announce any changes to variable mortgage rates for retail mortgages and to small business lending on the second Friday of each month.

ANZ's CEO Australia, Phil Chronican, said at the time: "We want the process of setting interest rates for our customers to be simple and transparent."

Transparency is only for customers with retail mortgages and small business loans.

A spokesman said yesterday that the monthly rate review would continue to apply only to variable rate retail mortgages and small business loans.