Sixty eight per cent of people who recently refinanced their home loan were able to find a loan with a lower interest rate, according to Mortgage Choice. Of these, almost one-quarter were saving more than $300 a month while close to nine in 10 were saving more than $50 a month.

"With a recent spate of rate rises and the possibility of more before 2011, plus a renewed focus on mortgage exit fees, it is no surprise Australians are refinancing to a cheaper mortgage deal and/or one that better suits their current needs and goals," said Mortgage Choice’s Kristy Sheppard.

"Impressively, more than two-thirds of respondents locked in a reduced interest rate upon refinancing, thereby lowering their minimum repayment level. Of these, 42 per cent reduced it by 1 percentage point or more."

Source: The Age

Strong corporate profits have raised the chances of another rate rise this year. There is now a 50/50 chance of a rate rise this year said economists, after official data showed company gross operating profits rose 18.9 per cent in the second quarter of 2010.

Commonwealth Bank senior economist Michael Workman said the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data boosted the chances of a lift in the cash rate from its current level of 4.5 per cent. "Most probably there's more than a 50 per cent chance of a rate rise later this year," he said.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

Westpac’s Internet banking service crashed again yesterday, for the second time this week. Tens of thousands of customers were left with no access to their accounts on what is a traditional busy Internet banking day, due to many employees being paid on a Thursday. On Tuesday Westpac customers were left without account access for over 7 hours because of an overnight Authorised Program Analysis Report (APAR) patch for their problems.

This latest crash could relate to "security" issues said bank insiders. In 2008 the Westpac online site was down for five days due to the Company failing to install proper backup that allowed their systems to be restored from a mirror site after a technician pulled a power cable at the Companies North Ryde Processing Centre.

Source: Smart Office