Australian consumer spending rose marginally in December, according to the Commonwealth Bank Business Sales Indicator released today.

The Commonwealth Bank Business Sales Indicator tracks the value of credit and debit card transactions processed through Commonwealth Bank merchant facilities across 20 industry sectors throughout Australia.

According to Bernard Tanner, Chief Operating Officer, Local Business Banking at the Commonwealth Bank, the Business Sales Indicator provides Australian consumers and business owners with a unique insight into household and business spend.

“For December, the Commonwealth Bank Business Sales Indicator showed consumer spend rose marginally by 0.3 per cent in trend terms, after rising by 0.4 per cent in November.
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The government says banks who might be contemplating an interest rate rise should heed its strong condemnation of the Commonwealth Bank’s move to lift rates by 10 basis points last week.

Deputy prime minister Julia Gillard said the Commonwealth was being selfish a time when all Australians and businesses needed to work together.

Community services minister Jenny Macklin said mortgage holders had every reason to be furious with the Commonwealth Bank.”

That follows reports that other banks might be preparing to follow the Commonwealth and jack up mortgage interest rates.
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Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) said its decision to raise mortgage interest rates was justified, as Treasurer Wayne Swan branded the move as “selfish”.

CBA spokesman Bryan Fitzgerald declined to comment specifically on Mr Swan’s remarks, made after the bank said on Friday it would lift rates on home and business loans from next Monday to offset higher funding costs.

He said the CBA’s rates were still the lowest in the market.

“We believe that our increase is justified and our interest rates are still the lowest in the market of the major banks and our customers have benefited because they have been the lowest for some time,” Mr Fitzgerald told AAP.
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Treasurer Wayne Swan has branded a decision by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) to raise its home loan interest rates as “selfish”.

Mr Swan said the decision, which has raised fears other banks will follow, will hinder the economic recovery.

CBA on Friday said it would raise its standard variable mortgage rates by 10 basis point from Monday June 15.

“The decision by the Commonwealth Bank gets in the way of interest rates relief, measures to stimulate our economy and to support jobs,” Mr Swan told journalists in Brisbane.
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Commonwealth Bank of Australia Ltd (CBA) will raise the interest rates on its home and business loans by 10 basis points to offset higher funding costs.

The rate on its standard variable loans will rise to 5.74 per cent, from 5.64 per cent, from Monday June 15.

Interest rates on a range of its fixed home loans and its Residentially Secured Better Business Loan will also rise by 10 basis points from Monday.

The increase in fixed rates does not affect existing customers.

“This is a decision the bank has made reluctantly,” CBA group executive of retail banking services Ross McEwan said in a statement on Friday.
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ACCC head, Graeme Samuel, has come out swinging on bank competition in the last few days. He is concerned that banking competition may be barely workable with reports that non-bank institutions are hardly active in lending markets and, indeed, of new mortgages, just two banks, Commonwealth and Westpac, have captured 85% of that business.

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The Commonwealth Bank is encouraging customers to be more vigilant with their personal and banking account details following a spate of scam or “phishing” emails being circulated domestically and abroad.

“In the past fortnight we are aware of three scam emails being circulated, claiming to be from the Commonwealth Bank. This week a further three new emails have been developed and circulated,” Ross McEwan, Group Executive, Retail Banking Service said.

“The Commonwealth Bank does not contact customers via email seeking personal information.”

“Hundreds of recipients of these emails have been contacting the Bank seeking clarification about their validity, which illustrates many Australians are suspicious about receiving emails from financial institutions seeking personal information,” Mr McEwan said.
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Telstra Corp has won a contract to provide telecommunication services for Commonwealth Bank of Australia Ltd that could be worth as much as $1 billion over the next 10 years.

The nation’s biggest telecommunications provider won the 10-year contract from the country’s biggest lender to provide fully managed telecommunications services to CBA branches, EFTPOS network and automatic teller machines, the both companies said in a joint statement on Wednesday.
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The current easing cycle for interest rates may have only just over seven months to run as the raising of fixed rates on home mortgages by three of the nation’s four big banks points the way to a monetary tightening from December.

Westpac Banking Corporation raised interest rates on fixed mortgages by up to 40 basis points and Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) by as much as 45 basis points on Tuesday, reflecting expectations of a stronger economy in the medium term.

The wholesale market swap rate has risen on expectations that the world economic climate would improve soon, a CBA spokesperson told AAP.
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Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) will raise its interest rates on fixed rate mortgages just as the federal government and industry players voice concern over banks’ failure to pass on the full amount of interest rate cuts to customers.

Australia’s largest mortgage lender said it will raise its interest rates on fixed rate mortgages by between 20 basis points and 45 basis points from Tuesday, but one-year home loans will not be affected.

The bank cited recent increases in the wholesale market swap rates from which the bank funds fixed rate home loans as the reason for the rate hikes.
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photo credit: Alex KehrFiji’s central bank has directed the Australian banks operating in the island group to cut interest rates and step up their lending to small business.

However, the open-end directive to step up micro-finance support has left senior executives at ANZ Banking Group scratching their heads as to the objectives of Fiji’s increasingly hardline military government.

ANZ said it was working with the Reserve Bank of Fiji (RBF) to understand its directives for all banks to cap the interest rate spreads between lending and deposit rates at four per cent by December 31 and bring average lending rates down to December 31 levels.
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The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) stands alone as the only major bank to cut interest rates after another easing in monetary policy - albeit by only a proportion of the full cut announced by the Reserve Bank of Australia.

CBA, citing what it termed “extremely expensive” funding, said that it did not rule out passing on only partial rate cuts in future.

CBA shaved 10 basis points from its standard variable mortgage rate following the RBA’s 25 basis point rate cut on Tuesday.
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The days of huge interest rate cuts may be over with the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) making only a modest 25 basis point reduction after Tuesday’s monthly board meeting.

The rate announcement came as miners Rio Tinto and Iluka Resources, and construction and mining equipment manufacturer Caterpillar, axed a combined total of more than 1,100 jobs in one day.

The central bank lowered the cash rate to a 49-year low of 3.0 per cent from 3.25 per cent, but even that wasn’t a small enough move for the country’s biggest home lender to be able to pass it on in full.
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Commonwealth Bank of Australia Ltd (CBA) has cut its standard variable home loan rate by 10 basis points.

The move comes after the Reserve Bank of Australia shaved 25 basis point of the official cash interest rate to a 49 year low of three per cent.

CBA’s standard variable rate cut now stands at 5.64 per cent.
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The profits of the major banks are unlikely to be hurt by their agreement to provide extensions for mortgage repayments for borrowers who lose their jobs, according to analysts.

If anything, the `big four’ are likely to benefit from the good publicity associated with the announcement by the government on Sunday and the ensuing reinforcement of their “safe” image.

“It’s hard to see it being a major drag on earnings,” Austock Securities analyst John Buonaccorsi said on Monday.
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