Interest rates going up

Economists at Australia’s leading banks expect the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to lift interest rates again as early as next week. There is the possibility that the official cash rate will be pushed up 100 basis points between now and the end of the year.

This could push the major banks’ standard variable rate back over 8% for the first time since late 2008.

The current cash rate set by the RBA in March 2010 is 4.0 per cent. Retail variable mortgages are two to three per cent above that. Another 1.0 per cent on average mortgage repayments on a home loan of $300,000 could take monthly home loan repayments up by more than $200 to $2173 per month.