Empower Blog Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA)

RBA Rate Decision – March 2018

At the March 2018 RBA board meeting, we saw the cash rate remain on hold at 1.5%. No surprises there — we know that the rate has been widely tipped to stay on hold from most economists around the country. This is an interesting point because what Governor Lowe made mention in February was that he doesn't see any strength in moving the cash rat...

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What’s APRA’s Next Move?

In this How-To Session we're going to explore what the potential move from APRA might be after the macro-prudential regulations they introduced in late 2014. Firstly, who is APRA? APRA stands for the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority, and their job is to regulate the lenders who lend money out into the marketplace. Now, when you've go...

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RBA Rate Decision – February 2018

Today Governor Lowe and the Board met for the very first time in 2018, and they kept the cash rate on hold at 1.5%. Again, no surprises there. The reason for that is because inflation numbers came out last week and the overall year-to-date number for 2017 was only 1.9%. We all know that they want to keep the inflation bandwidth between 2% ­– ...

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Negative Gearing Still Works

Bryce is Money Magazine’s cover story this October!! Here to explain Why Negative Gearing Still Works, Bryce puts forward a crucial point, and one we frequently come back to: negative gearing is not a strategy; it’s a tax outcome that represents a moment in time. In other words, “Negative gearing is a means to an end, not a permanent way ...

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How Do Mortgage Insiders Feel About The Market?

APRA’s approach to managing investor lending has raised some concerns and question marks for the property investment industry. But a new survey conducted by PIPA, as recently explained in Your Investment Property Magazine, proves that property professionals are rightfully optimistic. Ben, also Chair of PIPA, is excited about the level o...

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RBA Rate Decision – May 2017

Today Governor Lowe and the Reserve board met, and the kept the cash rate on hold once again in May. That keeps the cash rate at 1.5%, so monetary policy remains on hold, but we now are coming to the month of federal budgets and state budgets. And this is where we start to look at fiscal policy. So what are our state governments and also our federa...

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RBA Rate Decision – April 2017

Today Governor Lowe and the Reserve Board met, and they've kept the Cash Rate on hold at 1.5% for April 2017. Now there is a lot of commentary on the marketplace over the last month around property, and I want to get to that in a minute. Let's just quickly wrap up what's happening in terms of the world market and mainly the US. We did see the Cash ...

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RBA Rate Decision – February 2016

Today the Governor and the Reserve Board met and they've kept interest rates on hold for the first meeting of 2016. Now that keeps the cash rate at 2% and we haven't seen the change in the cash rate since May last year. Now the big news of the turn of the calendar year was actually the share market and the jitters that we saw run through those mar...

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RBA Rate Decision – November 2015

On this Melbourne Cup Tuesday, the RBA Board met and they've kept interest rates on hold for another month. Now, they has been a lot that have happened in the last month and I'm going to spend a few minutes talking about that. The first thing we saw is an out-of-cycle rate rise for mortgage holders, most importantly, not business lending. Just m...

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RBA Rate Decision – June 2015

Hello, today the Governor and the Reserve Board met and they've kept interest rates on hold. Now this was widely anticipated. The facts are, at 2% cash rate, it is at historically low level and if we were to actually move rates further down which we do have capacity to do if you look at the minutes for May 2015 Cash Rate. They are saying that we...

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