Sunrise host Nat Barr calls out big Aussie banks including NAB, Westpac

Sunrise presenter Natalie Barr has broken into Australia’s biggest banks as the Big Four prepare for a parliamentary inquiry into savings rates.

Australia’s big banks are about to face the vagaries this week as CEOs appear before the House of Representatives’ committee on economics.

The CEOs of NAB, Westpac, ANZ and Commonwealth Bank are asked why interest rate hikes are not fully passed on to customers’ savings accounts.

While the national interest rate is 4.1 percent, the current interest on the online savings accounts of the major banks remains between 1.05 and 2.15 percent.

Financial expert Steve Mickenbecker labeled it a “raw deal” for clients, with Barr joining in on the pile.

“We all know we want strong banks and we have them in this country, but is this being a bit rich?” Barr asked Shadow Treasury Secretary Jane Hume on Wednesday.

“What would you do to solve this problem?”

The shadow finance minister said the only way interest rates could be brought back down was to bring inflation under control.

“That’s why we want to make sure that the government ensures that its fiscal responsibility is met, that it governs and that it suspends suspicions,” she said.

“To do that, you have to control your spending and we don’t have to keep raising interest rates and punishing mortgage lenders more and more.”

Ms Hume said the big banks will be held accountable during the investigation.

“That’s a good thing, we want to make sure that if they’ve raised that [interest] commend it for doing so in a timely and transparent manner,” she said.

“They will have to justify themselves to MPs why they have not done so.”

Since May 2022, Australia’s major banks have passed on repeated rate hikes in full to variable mortgage customers, but not to all savings accounts.

Current rates on online savings accounts have only increased by 1.05 to 2.15 percent in the past 14 months of repeated rate hikes.

This means that people who have an existing online savings account with the big four miss out on up to 2.95 percentage points.

The move has sparked outrage from financial comparison website Canstar Group Executive Financial Services Steve Mickenbecker who called it a “raw deal” for clients.

“Savers should be doing well in an environment of rising interest rates, and some are, but there is a whole group that is getting a rough deal,” he said.

“Savers who keep their money in a regular savings account … put their way into subpar interest rates and forget about them, when they should be on the winning side of rate hikes.”

Sally Tindall, the director of research at RateCity.com.ausaid customers of the big four shouldn’t assume they’d get every rate hike in full.

“While the big banks have increased some savings rates by more than the RBA increases, which is fantastic, millions of customers with online savings accounts have current rates that are about half if not a quarter of current cash rates,” she said. .

“That’s far from fantastic.”

Ms Tinfall said savings accounts were purposefully designed to trap customers with a plethora of fine print, balance limits and introductory rates.

“The big four banks should consider simplifying their savings account options to make it easier for all customers to understand and navigate, rather than the survival of the fittest approach they’ve taken to date,” she said.

The top executives of ANZ and NAB will appear for the parliamentary inquiry on Wednesday, followed by CBA and Westpac on Thursday.