ANZ Bank matches RBA rise

With the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) revealing the base rate is to increase by 0.25 per cent, one of the country's leading banks has unveiled that it too will put up rates across its products.

ANZ Bank has announced that rates on a number of its bank accounts, credit cards and other products are set to rise.

In the wake of the Reserve Bank's decision to increase interest rates by 25 basis points, the financial services firm points out that rates across its credit card and business lending portfolio will also go up by this amount.

The Australian banking move - the second rate rise to have taken place in a month - will also see the Melbourne-base bank raise rates on its progress saver account products by 35 basis points to stand at three per cent.

"Funding costs remain high and despite improvements in credit markets the average cost of wholesale funding is increasing which is continuing to place considerable pressure on mortgage margins," Graham Hedges ANZ chief executive for Australia, states.

Such news comes as Petter Ingemarsson, senior financial services analyst for Datamonitor, recently told Perth Now that an increase in competition in the country's credit card market will result in an overall decline in card fees and rates.

Posted by Bret Clement