Australia’s fourth largest lender has increased the rate on its basic variable loan for the third time in the last five months for new customers, in addition to the standard Reserve Bank hikes.
ANZ has raised the advertised rate on its Simplicity Plus loan by up to 0.15 percentage points for new customers, taking the total rate increases since March 1 to 1.1 pp. Existing customers are not impacted.
“As a result, an existing customer who took out ANZ’s lowest rate loan at the start of March is now paying 0.35 percentage points less than what a new customer will be offered today,” said Sally Tindall (pictured above), RateCity.com.au research director.
RateCity.com.au showed in the table below the changes to ANZ’s Simplicity Plus for new customers only.
“Australia’s biggest banks are trying to put an end to the new customer discounting that previously dominated the market,” Tindall said.
“In the last five months, the big four banks have collectively hiked new customer rates on 18 occasions in a bid to protect their profit margins, with other large lenders, such as Macquarie Bank following suit.
See the table below for the big four banks’ new lowest advertised rates.
Tindall said there were also a number of smaller lenders who continued to buck the trend in order to secure a bigger slice of the home lending pie.
“There are still a handful of lenders offering rates under 5.5%, although in many cases customers will need a decent deposit to qualify,” she said.
“The anomaly in all of this is ANZ’s $4,000 cashback for refinancers. The bank might be walking away from new customer discounts but it’s willing to splash the cash upfront in a bid to steal customers away from its big bank rivals.”
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