AUSTRALIA: The Reserve Bank of Australia has suggested the major banks
may be profiteering from their recent round of interest rate increases,
arguing moves on lending rates over the past two years have been
outpacing funding costs, The Sydney Morning Herald reports. The report
cites an RBA analysis of banks’ interest rate movements and comes amid
signs that households are starting to feel the squeeze on mortgages
follow a string of rate rises since October. The RBA has said the major
banks were the worst offenders when it came to excess pricing, with
lending rates outpacing rises in funding costs by as much as 25 basis
points since the onset of the credit crisis, equal to billions of
dollars in additional revenue.