ME Bank says it will keep its mortgage rates on hold ahead of Friday’s ANZ announcement: RBA rate decision aftermath

Melbourne-based ME Bank has announced it will leave standard variable mortgage rates unchanged two days ahead of ANZ’s independent rates announcement on Friday.

The decision to keep its mortgage rates on hold follows the RBA leaving the official cash rate unchanged at 4.25% last week.

ME Bank says it is leaving standard variable interest rates unchanged for the third month in a row “despite continued funding pressures”.

However ME Bank CEO Jamie McPhee warned that if “funding costs remain elevated then absorbing these increasing costs cannot occur forever”.

ME Bank currently has a standard variable rate of 6.74%.

This is 62 basis points lower than ANZ, which has the lowest standard variable rate of the big four banks and 72 basis points lower than Westpac, which has the highest standard variable rate of the major banks.

"It's important that we take the lead by acting independently with the needs of our customers and shareholders in mind," says McPhee. "We won't sit idly by and wait for our competitors to make a move when customers need certainty from their bank."

"ME Bank is maintaining our competitive position. Every month, since we became a bank in 2001, ME Bank has provided industry super fund and union members with standard variable mortgage rates lower than those of the major banks. This has not been a short-term pledge.

"While the major banks quickly increased rates and announced mass job redundancies and off-shoring to protect excessive profits, ME Bank did not. We've sought to keep the full burden off customers for as long as possible," says McPhee.