Angry ANZ customers can walk: Swan

10 Feb 2012, 6:35 pm   -   Source: AAP
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Treasurer Wayne Swan says ANZ customers who are angry at the bank's interest rate rise can find a better deal elsewhere. (AAP)

Treasurer Wayne Swan says ANZ customers who are angry at the bank's interest rate rise can find a better deal elsewhere. (AAP)

Treasurer Wayne Swan has reminded ANZ customers they can find a better deal, after the bank raised its interest rates.

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Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan says ANZ customers will be "ropeable" at the bank's decision to raise rates, but has reminded them they can find a better deal.

ANZ on Friday independently raised its variable interest rates for retail mortgages and small business loans by 0.06 per cent, following the Reserve Bank's decision on Tuesday to leave the cash rate on hold at 4.25 per cent.

ANZ on Friday said it had lifted its standard variable interest rates on home loans to 7.36 per cent from 7.30 per cent.

However, it cut its fixed lending rates.

Mr Swan said the bank's customers would be justifiably angry about the rate hike but added that with the abolition of exit fees last July they could now "walk down the road and get a better deal".

Mr Swan said that by the end of this year one million households would hold mortgages without exit fees.

"I think ANZ customers will be absolutely ropeable with the ANZ," Mr Swan told reporters in Sydney on Friday.

"The fact is that the major banks in this country are very profitable. Their net interest margins are back to where they were prior to the global financial crisis.

"We do need a strong financial system. We do need profitable banks. But what we need here is competition.

"And what I say to Australians who are observing these decisions, this one from the ANZ, is you do have the capacity to walk down the road and get a better deal."

Asked if he expected the other major banks to follow ANZ's lead, Mr Swan said "we'll have to wait".

"But my comments apply equally to anyone else, who should take a decision such as this," Mr Swan said.

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