In less than a week after St George lifted its standard variable interest rate by 20 basis points, 2 other major banks, BankWest and The Commonwealth Bank, did exactly the same.
Bankwest has increased its standard variable home loan rate by 0.2 per cent, taking its variable home loan rate to 9.55 per cent.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia has raised its variable home loan interest rates by 14 percentage points, taking its standard variable rate home loan from 9.44 per cent per annum to 9.58 per cent per annum and its basic variable home loan will go from 8.93 per cent to 9.07 per cent.
Raises came despite Reserve Bank of Australia left official interest rates on hold at 7.25%. All banks blame higher cost of funds following the global credit crunch for the increases. If that's the case we should see remaining banks to follow the example and raise their interest rates between 10 and 20 basis points.
It's become more and more crucial to compare home loans first before applying for any home loan.