Australian banks Australian interest rates

Australia’s little financial crisis delivers its first serious blow

Thursday, 30 August 2018

Via the AFR:

New federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has demanded Westpac justify its out-of-cycle interest rate increase for all mortgage borrowers.

“My view is it’s up to the bank to explain to the Australian people why it lifted rates. Any financial institutional which makes these decisions needs to explain to its customers why,” Mr Frydenberg, who is also the deputy Liberal leader, said on Wednesday.

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About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.