Why Banks Made Billions While Australians Fell Behind.

Hinzugefügt: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]People are struggling. The cost of living is absurd. It's pretty stressful at the time. Just getting by at the moment.

[00:00:12]Between 2022 and 2023, the RBA raised interest rates 13 times.

[00:00:19]Your mortgage repayments [music] went up $1,800 a month.

[00:00:24]The big four banks made $32.5 billion in profit. Same period, same rates, different experience.

[00:00:33]Here's the part nobody explained to you.

[00:00:35]When the RBA raises rates, your bank raises your mortgage immediately, same week, sometimes [music] same day.

[00:00:43]But your savings account, that increase arrives slowly, >> [music] >> partially, sometimes never.

[00:00:49]That gap between what the bank charges borrowers and what it pays savers is called the net interest [music] margin.

[00:00:57]And every time rates rose, that gap widened. CBA made $10.2 billion. NAB made $7.7 billion. ANZ made $7.4 billion. Westpac made $7.2 [music] billion. Record profits, all four.

[00:01:17]Same year, 1.5 [music] million Australians entered mortgage stress.

[00:01:21]But here's what they never put in the press release.

[00:01:24]Banks don't just profit from higher rates. They profit from uncertainty.

[00:01:30]When rates rise fast, borrowers panic and lock in fixed rates.

[00:01:34]>> [music] >> At the peak, banks love this because when rates eventually fall, you're still paying the peak rate, locked in, unable to move, while the banks' funding costs quietly drop. You absorb the risk, >> [music] >> they kept the margin. That's not banking, that's architecture. The RBA raised rates to fight [music] inflation.

[00:01:57]Inflation caused by supply chains, energy prices, and pandemic [music] spending. None of which you caused. You paid for it anyway through your mortgage. While the institutions designed [music] to stabilize the economy reported the most profitable years in [music] their history.

[00:02:15]Remarkable timing.

[00:02:17]The RBA has since cut [music] rates three times. Banks passed on every cut slowly, partially after community [music] outcry. But the rate rises, those arrived instantly.

[00:02:30]The asymmetry isn't accidental. It's the model. You were never the customer. You were always the product.