This week’s Canstar report highlighted varied mortgage rate changes ahead of the 2025-26 federal budget, with notable adjustments by Queensland Country Bank and ANZ.
Queensland Country Bank reduced its owner occupier and investor variable rates by an average of 0.15%, signaling a competitive adjustment to attract more borrowers.
Conversely, Illawarra Credit Union took an opposite approach by increasing 10 investor fixed rates by an average of 0.10%.
Nine lenders have reduced a total of 171 owner occupier and investor fixed rates by an average of 0.2%.
Check out the latest home loan rate adjustments in the table below.
Notable among them, ANZ, one of Australia's big four banks, cut its one-year fixed rate by 0.25 percentage points to 5.89%.
“The variable rate cuts might have almost completely dried up, however, there was a deluge of fixed cuts this week with big four bank ANZ included in this mix,” said Sally Tindall (pictured above), Canstar’s data insights director,
The number of rates below 5.75% on Canstar’s database has increased from 375 to 426 over the past week. Below’s the list of lenders offering rates below 5.75%.
Despite these cuts, ANZ’s rate still trails behind the more competitive rates available, such as the lowest advertised one-year rate in the Canstar database of 5.39% from Pacific Mortgage Group.
Looking forward, the economic landscape is poised for an action-packed week with the release of the 2025-26 federal budget.
The government has announced a $150 extension of the electricity rebate, which, while providing relief, is not expected to boost retail spending significantly.
Reflecting on the government’s strategy, Tindall said: “Certainly, last year’s $300 rebate, combined with the stage three tax cuts, saw many people stash this extra cash straight into the bank.”
Additionally, this rebate is anticipated to cut headline inflation by 0.5 percentage points temporarily.
RBA is preparing to analyse the layers of the forthcoming monthly inflation data, although it tends to view such government-induced reductions with skepticism regarding their permanence, Canstar reported.
“The RBA might be peeling back the layers of the monthly inflation data due out on Wednesday, but it will continue to take the headline inflation figures with a grain of salt when it meets next week,” Tindall said.
As RBA prepares for its next meeting, set on March 31-April 1, the temporary nature of the government’s financial interventions through rebates will be a critical consideration in their monetary policy decisions.
