Are you a saver? This is what the cash rate increase means to you
Are you one of the many savers who cheer when interest rates start to rise? For years, record low interest rates meant anyone with money in the bank got little or no interest. The Reserve Bank this week raised the official interest rate by 0.5 percentage point, its third increase in as many months. If you’re having trouble paying the higher interest rates on your mortgage, we’re here to help. But if you’re a saver (and don’t want to invest), here are three options for parking your money. First, what will happen to the interest rate on my savings account? Depends. The official cash rate has gone up, but that doesn’t mean everyone will earn more interest on their savings. It is up to individual lenders to decide how much of the Reserve Bank’s rate hikes to pass on to savers (and mortgage borrowers). Some lenders have already started going through the July hikes. In June, the big four banks were slow to pass rate hikes to their savings accounts and not all continued the hike in full. So i