All four major banks took only a few hours after Tuesday’s 0.25 per cent official rate increase to announce they were ratcheting up mortgage pricing.
All four banks will pass on the official rate rise in full to home loan borrowers but three were less enthusiastic about re-pricing their range of savings products.
CBA’s, NAB’s and ANZ’s basic variable home loans will reprice from 14 October while Westpac will hike its equivalent product from 18 October.
The reluctance of the latter three banks to pass on the benefits of official rate increases to a wide sweep of depositors is likely to set off a public controversy following calls from treasurer Jim Chalmers in recent months for the banks to support self-funded retirees.
Although NAB indicated in statement that its savings rates were “continually under review”, it has not repriced any deposit products in response to the latest RBA move.
Westpac has repriced only a handful of deposit products by 0.25 per cent including its bonus saver account which is now paying annual interest of up to 2.6 per cent.
ANZ confined its 25 bps move on savings rates to its problematic ANZ Plus offering.
Commonwealth Bank was more pragmatic, passing the 25 bps onto its NetBank Saver, GoalSaver and Youthsaver products.
Market share data cited in Banking Day on Tuesday show that the reluctance of major banks to reprice their deposit offers in the last six months has cost them market share.
In August two of the major banks – Westpac and ANZ – suffered a net outflow of deposits as savers chased better deals at other institutions.
According to APRA data, Westpac’s total deposits base contracted by more than A$3 billion in August while ANZ lost more than $2 billion of deposits.
In its statement NAB attempted to justify its decision not to improve any deposit rates by arguing it improved them in September.
“NAB’s savings and term deposit rates are continually under review. In September, NAB increased a number of savings rates by 0.50 per cent and term deposit rates by up to 0.85 per cent,” the bank said.
“NAB has made more than 30 rate increases on savings products since 1 May.”