More banks move to stay in touch with Macbank

Two more banks have raised term deposit rates as they come under competitive pressure. They have starkly different approaches to the challenge

Breakfast briefing: Wall Street optimism fades

US data hesitant; Canadian data mixed; Japan sentiment rises; China data weak; Hong Kong trashes its democracy; India exports rise; UST 10yr at 4.18%; gold hovers near record; oil lower; AU$1 = 66.4 USc

Fixed home loan rates are on the move - up

Westpac is the latest, and largest bank to raised fixed mortgage rates and by as much as +35 bps. They follow a slew of challenger banks. Despite that a fixed rate loan retains some clear advantages

Commbank tries to stay in touch

Our largest bank is front-footing Macquarie's household deposit challenge with yet another hike in their term deposit rate offers

The Japanese canary in the global debt coal mine

Barry Eichengreen weighs the implications of the Bank of Japan's announcement that it will soon consider raising interest rates

Only creative destruction will boost competitiveness

2025 Nobel laureate Philippe Aghion explains how advanced economies in Europe (or elsewhere) can find their way back to the technological frontier

The RBA holds its cash rate target at 3.6%

The Australian central bank struggles with the inflation outlook but sees risks tilting to the upside, even though they still think the inflation pressure is transitory

Competition for one year term deposits is heating up

Even though most of the top ten banks have raised their interest rate offers, and two more have now just done so, most are struggling to defend the raid on household deposits by Macbank

For Macbank, the only direction is 'up'

Macquarie raises its fixed home loan rates across the board, with some increases quite large. This comes after aggressive rate offers to savers

Creative destruction should not spare commercial banks

Katharina Pistor worries that policymakers are foregoing innovation for fear of disrupting a centuries-old business model

Q3 economic activity rises less than expected

The latest GDP data shows private investment growth driven by machinery and equipment for data centers. Essential household spending rose as discretionary spending dropped. But the household saving ratio rose

Macbank keeps pressure on its rivals with a new market-leading one year TD rate

Moving fast, Macquarie extends its appeal to household savers, adding a new very competitive term deposit rate to an already competitive savings rate set

Teaching their rivals a lesson, some of them an increasingly painful one

Macquarie Bank has gained an extra $19 bln in household deposits over and above the market growth of +10.5%. And no rival seems to be able to do anything about their momentum

Commbank really wants your attention

The biggest bank is making an outsized play for your savings with a hefty hike in their two year term deposit rate to a market-leading level

APRA to limit high debt-to-income home loans to constrain riskier lending

New rules arrive to try and limit the impending damage the Home Guarantee Scheme is expected to induce, after Canberra pulled taxpayers into backing up risky first home buyer lending in an already frothy housing market

CPI rose 3.8% in the year to October 2025

Inflation up unexpectedly, complicating the RBA's policy track. This is the highest inflation reading since the monthly data series began in April 2025

Risks and vulnerabilities

In its latest review of the financial system, APRA is seeing some signs of a pick-up in higher risk lending, particularly high debt-to-income borrowing by investors