CBA hikes investor mortgage rates

The nation’s biggest bank has become the second to hike mortgage rates for investors, following ANZ’s announcement on Thursday.
Commonwealth Bank will lift the standard variably rate for investors by 27 basis points to 5.72% per annum.
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The hike is connected to new rules that will require banks to put aside more capital against loans they issue.
On Thursday ANZ lifted the standard variable mortgage rate for residential property investors by the same amount – 0.27 percentage points – to 5.65 per cent per annum.
A spokesperson for Commonwealth said: “As Australia’s largest home lender, we support the prudential regulator’s actions to ensure lending practices remain sustainable and we have been actively managing our investment home loan portfolio to remain below the 10% growth limit.
“Despite making a range of changes to our investor lending policies in the past few months we have witnessed ongoing investor lending growth, and at an industry level, investor lending approvals remain 22% higher than 12 months ago.”