Commonwealth Bank of Australia Ltd says it cannot guarantee that increases in interest rates for home lending rates won’t exceed those made by the central bank.

All big four banks have said that variable mortgage rates may have to rise faster than the Reserve Bank of Australia’s rate increases because of funding pressures.

“If we have to move standard variable above the OCR (overnight cash rate) then we will have to do that,” chief executive Ralph Norris said in a phone conference after releasing the bank’s September quarter earnings update.

“We’ve seen significantly higher levels of term deposit rates.

“If you look at wholesale margins, they’re still significantly up over where they were two years ago.”
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