Interest rate announcement - 12 August 2022. Bank Australia will increase variable home loan and commercial variable rates in response the RBA’s recent decision to raise the official cash rate. From 18 August 2022, interest rates will increase by 0.50% for variable rate owner-occupier and investor loans, while commercial variable rate loans will also increase by 0.50%. For existing home loan customers, repayment changes will be effective from 1 October 2022. Read more here.
We believe that a truly responsible bank can help make our society better and our Impact Fund is one of the ways we do this.
As a customer-owned bank, we ask our customers regularly to tell us which issues they want to see us act upon. This is how we determine which projects to support through the Impact Fund.
Above: The Great Ocean Road, VIC
We're guided by our responsible banking policy, which sets out what we do and don’t lend to. This helps us focus on people and businesses working towards a future of conservation, financial inclusion, and reconciliation.
Here are some examples of our funding categories:
Our largest Impact Fund investment is the Bank Australia Conservation Reserve, a 2,117 hectare private nature reserve that is protecting important woodlands and wetlands habitats as well as 13 threatened native animal species.
Working in partnership with Greening Australia and Trust for Nature we are using evidence-based conservation planning to inform our vision and strategy for this project.
Bank Australia was the first customer owned bank to have a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) and in 2018 we launched our fourth stretch plan. We also use our Impact Fund to support initiatives that promote reconciliation and help close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
We support Human Rights Watch to undertake their independent refugee research program which helps to defend the rights of refugees, asylum seekers and displaced people worldwide. Human Rights Watch staff respond to emergencies and chronic situations, document human rights issues, and take their findings to policy makers, legislators and the media.
The Bank Australia Learning Potential Fund Scholarship addresses educational disadvantage by offering financial support to a QUT student to help them complete their studies
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At Bank Australia we respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of all the lands on which we work and pay our respects to the elders past present and emerging. Our head office is located on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. We recognise their continued connection to the land, waters and culture and we acknowledge their sovereignty has never been ceded. We acknowledge the constant resistance and resilience of First Nations people in their fight for self-determination.
We support the Uluru Statement from the Heart to achieve justice, recognition and respect for First Nations people and a referendum to enshrine a First Nations Voice in the Constitution. We see reconciliation as a fundamental responsibility for Bank Australia and we are committed to advancing reconciliation with Australia’s First Peoples.
