Movement in Bank Advertised Interest Rates

It is interesting to see that ANZ, in its latest release, has reduced its term deposit rates while maintaining lending rates at the same level they were last month (see blog entry before this). Here are the reductions noted:

• Retail Term Deposits 9 months to 1 year - from 6.00% to 5.00%;
• Retail Term Deposits 1 to 1.5 Years - from 8.00% to 6.00%;
• Retail Term Deposits 1.5 to 2 Years - from 6.25% to 5.75%; and
• Retail Term Deposits 2 Years to 3 Years - from 6.25% to 4.50%.

This would mean another widening of the interest margins/spreads that I talked about earlier - again to the detriment of customers.

One just wonders what the Reserve Bank of Fiji's position on this is. Anyway, it had somewhat "rejoiced" when this happened last September when commenting on the movement in interest spreads in its December 2006 Quarterly Review. (See page 25 of the writeup titled "Quarterly Review of the Economy & Financial Conditions").