Lowe: While on the topic of interest rates, I...>

RBA: Lowe: While on the topic of interest rates, I would like to draw your

attention to some new analysis of lending rates that will be included in today's

Statement on Monetary Policy and updated each month on the RBA website. In

particular, the newly published data show that households that took out their

mortgage four or five years ago are paying noticeably higher interest rates than

those who took out their mortgage more recently. This reflects the fact that the

discounts offered to lenders' standard variable rates have risen over recent

years and these discounts tend to be fixed for the life of the loan - what might

have once seemed a big discount might not be so big now. As I have said a number

of times recently, if you took your loan out a while ago it is worth shopping

around and checking in with your lender to see if it can now give you a bigger

discount. New data being published by the RBA and ASIC should help with this

shopping around.