Sydney, May 12, 2026, 08:02 AEST
Commonwealth Bank of Australia will raise rates on selected savings products from Friday, moving after last week’s Reserve Bank of Australia increase and days after it passed the full quarter-point rise to variable home loans.
The timing matters. CBA, Australia’s largest bank, is resetting both sides of the rate book: borrowers face higher mortgage costs, while some savers get higher returns. The RBA lifted the cash rate — the benchmark rate that shapes bank funding and loan pricing — by 25 basis points, or a quarter percentage point, to 4.35% on May 5 in an 8-1 board vote.
CBA said its NetBank Saver introductory rate for new customers will rise by 0.25 percentage point to 5.20% a year from May 15. GoalSaver with bonus interest will rise to 5.00%, Youthsaver with bonus interest to 5.05%, and a 12-month term deposit offer remains at 5.20% for eligible balances between A$5,000 and A$5 million.
The bank had already said it would lift variable home-loan rates by 0.25 percentage point from May 15. Angus Sullivan, CBA’s group executive for retail banking, said the lender’s focus was on “supporting customers to stay on top of their finances” as higher living costs persist. CommBank
CBA’s move fits a wider industry response. ABC reported that the big four banks — CBA, National Australia Bank, Westpac and ANZ — all passed on the RBA’s 0.25 percentage-point increase to customers, with the changes expected to take effect around May 15.
The deposit changes are not uniform. CBA is lifting some headline rates by the full quarter point, but the standard variable rate on NetBank Saver for existing customers rises 0.15 percentage point to 2.10%. That keeps the highest rates tied to introductory or bonus conditions, a familiar feature of Australia’s savings market.
CBA also used the week to push its technology agenda, opening a San Francisco Technology Hub to put Australian engineers closer to artificial-intelligence labs. The bank said the hub builds on its Seattle site and is part of work with OpenAI, AWS, Anthropic and Microsoft; more than 70% of its engineering teams already use AI tools.
Chief Executive Matt Comyn said the hub was part of CBA’s commitment to work “at the frontier of technology” with global partners. Tech publication iTnews said the San Francisco site is CBA’s second U.S. technology hub and is aimed at speeding AI adoption across the bank. iTnews
The risk is that the rate cycle does not settle quickly. Higher mortgage rates may put more pressure on households, while higher savings rates can lift funding costs for lenders if deposit competition heats up. Belinda Allen, CBA’s head of Australian economics, said the bank’s base case is for the RBA to hold rates for the rest of 2026, but added that “a further rate hike cannot be ruled out, depending on the data.” CommBank
For CBA, the near-term story is still rates, not AI. Customers will see the savings and mortgage changes land from May 15, just as investors watch whether Australia’s biggest banks can protect margins in a tougher inflation and funding backdrop.
