Australia is on track to win its brutal and long-running war against inflation earlier than expected, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has predicted, paving the way for interest rate cuts. Two years after the Reserve Bank began hiking the official cash rate, slamming mortgage holders with 13 increases and adding thousands ofContinue Reading
Australian mums and dads are taking extraordinary steps to ensure their young children escape the worst of what looks to be a bleak financial future. A growing number of worried parents are establishing savings and investment accounts for their kids – some on the day they’re born – to helpContinue Reading
A subsidiary of Australia’s biggest bank has delivered a surprise gift to prospective homeowners just two weeks before Christmas. Bankwest, a part of Commonwealth Bank, announced this week it would reduce its variable rates on new home loans for owner-occupiers and investors by 0.1 per cent, effective from Friday. TheContinue Reading
Australians are missing out on earning more on their savings, the competition watchdog has found, as it lashed the banks for operating “complex” and “opaque” pricing systems on deposit accounts. An inquiry conducted by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on retail savings rates has released its final report,Continue Reading
Australia’s housing system is fundamentally broken and a “stunning failure of public policy” is to blame, creating a “national calamity” that’s damaging the country’s social fabric. That’s the blistering assessment of respected money expert and the ABC’s financial commentator, Alan Kohler, who paints a dire picture of all things realContinue Reading
Just about everywhere you look, there are worsening signs that Australia is no longer the lucky country. From record-high rents to skyrocketing mortgages, a cost-of-living crisis to the alarming emergence of a ‘working poor’ population, the country faces an unprecedented storm of factors putting pressure on millions of people. AndContinue Reading
Australia’s biggest bank has hit Australian homeowners with an interest rate increase, the last of the Big Four to follow the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Melbourne Cup hike on Tuesday. Commonwealth Bank will increase its variable home loan rates by 0.25 per cent per annum from November 17, the bankContinue Reading
One Australia’s biggest banks has lifted its mortgage rates one day after the Reserve Bank of Australia hiked the cash rate to 4.35 per cent, the first big bank to follow suit. Adelaide Bank, part of the ASX-listed Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, announced on Wednesday it would increase its fixed-rateContinue Reading
The man who launched Australia’s crushing rate rise cycle pocketed more than $1m in his final year at the central bank. Philip Lowe stepped down as Reserve Bank of Australia governor after seven years in September. The RBA’s 2023 annual report shows his salary for 2022-23 hit $1,147,465 – aContinue Reading
Hundreds of thousands of Australians are flooding financial crisis hotlines in desperate need of help, on the brink of losing their homes as they struggle with sky high mortgage repayments. Rapidly rising interest rates and a worsening cost-of-living crisis have combined to create a perfect storm that experts say wouldContinue Reading