Adelaide Bank announced today that it has raised its wholesale mortgage rate by 40 basis points or 0.4%, exceeding the Reserve Bank’s (RBA) 25 basis point (0.25%) increase in official rates yesterday.
A spokesman for Adelaide Bank told AAP that the rate rise was due to the growing cost of funds caused by the global credit crisis.
The latest increase is yet to apply to either Bendigo Bank or Adelaide Banks’ retail home loans.
"Our delivered cost of wholesale funds has increased by 40 basis points, or 15 basis points, above the RBA," said an Adelaide Bank spokesman.
"That’s obviously in response to global funding markets.
"It’s not a decision we take lightly and we do it with consideration for all of our stakeholders, including our customers and our partners and our shareholders."
A third of Adelaide Bank’s $16 billion mortgage book will be impacted by the increase.
The increase is expected to provide the benchmark for rate rise increases across the banking sector this month.
In January, for the first time in a decade, Australia’s top lenders raised their home loan rates independent of the Reserve Bank in response to a sharp rise in credit costs on global markets.
When the RBA lifted the official cash rate by 25 basis points, CBA and NAB lifted rates on their variable rate home loans by 30 basis points and 29 basis points respectively. The other major banks all matched the official rise.
The major banks also lifted rates by between 10 and 20 basis points in January, despite no action from the RBA, citing higher funding costs.
CBA and Westpac currently have a standard variable home loan rate of 8.97%, NAB’s rate is 8.98% and ANZ’s rate is 9.02%
