Australia’s ‘Big Four’ banks to hike home loan rates to match RBA move

© Thomson Reuters FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: Pedestrians walk past the Reserve Bank of Australia building in central Sydney

(Reuters) – Australia’s so-called ‘Big Four’ banks said on Thursday they would pass on the central bank’s latest quarter-percentage point interest rate hike in full to their home loan customers.

The move comes as the lenders continue to move in lockstep with the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), which raised its official cash rate by a widely expected 25 basis points (bps) to 3.6% on Tuesday.

Among the top four lenders, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank, and ANZ Group Holdings will hike their rates from March 17, while Westpac Banking Corp’s will hike its rates from March 21, the banks said in separate statements.

Interest rates in the country have already gone up by 350 bps since last May, when they were at an all-time low of 0.1%.

However, RBA Governor Philip Lowe said the central bank was closer to pausing its aggressive cycle of rate increases as policy was now in restrictive territory, and suggested a halt could come as soon as April.

(Reporting by Navya Mittal and Himanshi Akhand in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)