ANZ last to announce cut, but first to deliver among big four

ANZ today announced it will lower interest rates for variable rate mortgages by 0.25% per annum following its monthly interest rate review.

Effective Thursday 12 February, ANZ’s standard variable rate will be 5.63% per annum (5.73% per annum comparison rate).

The 0.25% per annum decrease will save customers about $60 per month or $750 per year for the average home loan of $280,000.

“We’ve decided to move our standard variable rate for home loans down by 25 basis points which is the same as the movement in the Reserve Bank’s official cash rate," ANZ CEO Australia Philip Chronican told ANZ’s BlueNotes news site.

“We’ve tried to have a more open discussion with the community about bank funding costs. It’s true that wholesale funding costs have eased a little bit over the last year or so and that’s taken a little bit of the pressure off.

“Importantly the effective date for this change will be 12 February which is a full eight days earlier than most of our major competitors and I think that’s an important customer benefit,” Chronican said. 

He told News Ltd that he has concerns about the property market given cheap money.

“I am cautious because if you look at the big picture around the globe, this era of very cheap money has led to asset prices rising,” he said. “It would be nice to see some of the money … going into building new capacity, new construction, businesses expanding, rather than just seeing it all being used to bid up the prices of existing assets.”