Beat The Banks Rally

EVENT: PROTEST AGAINST BIG BANKS INCREASING INTEREST ONLY LOANS WHERE: PERTH, BRISBANE, MEBLOURNE, SYDNEY DATE and TIME: NOON, 31 JULY, 2017

Property Club, which is Australia’s largest independent property investment group, will be organising protest meetings against rises to interest only loans by the big four banks for property investors outside the offices of a major financial institution in Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.

It has been estimated that these recent rate rises to interest only loans add up to around $900 million in extra annual profits for the Big 4 Banks.

Troy Gunaseka, Property Club national spokesperson for Property Club, said this would be the first of several protests to be conducted nationally outside the big four banks during the coming months.

“Property investors have now had a ‘gut full’ of the Big 4 Banks penalising them through ever increasing interest rates despite a record low cash rate in Australia. The last increase in the cash rate was in November 2010 at 0.25%!

“For example, the NAB increased interest only loans for property investors by 0.35% last Friday to more than 6.25% despite the fact that the official cash rate is just 1.5%

“There have been several increases by Westpac as well as the other big banks to interest only loans over the past several months even though official interest rates are on hold.

“This latest rise in interest only rates by Westpac is a savage increase when you consider the bank made over $3 billion in profits for the 6 months to March 2017.

“Property Club believes that this savage increase in interest only rates is to help pay for the new Bank Tax imposed by the Federal Government. Australian property investors are now paying world high interest rates compared to those in the USA and UK.

“There are currently more than 2 million properties where these latest increases in interest only loans will be the tipping point for many mum and dad property investors to start protesting against the actions of the big banks,” he said.

Troy Gunasekera