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Interest rates could hit 12.5% by 2016
Economist Phil Ruthven told delegates at the FAST Business Excellence Conference in Palm Cove, Queensland, that interest
rates in Australia could almost treble over the next six years. Ruthven, founder and chairman of business
information forecaster IBIS World, said that as the global economy regains its composure, it would rediscover its appetite for finance. He added that while international markets such as China and India were able to service their own needs, other countries in the developed world like Australia didn’t have such an aptitude for saving, which could force interest rates to rise. Ruthven forecasted rates could reach 12.5% in 2016, but remarked that this was still way short of the levels reached in the early 1990s. He also predicted that Australia could experience its next recession in 2018 based on previous cycles, and praised the government for helping Australia to avoid the worst of the global financial crisis, which hit other countries around the world far harder. At the conference, held at the end of July, FAST chief executive Steve Kane told delegates the
take-up of the aggregator’s white-labelled FASTLend product had exceeded all expectations. FASTLend was piloted to a panel of 50 brokers in February before a full launch in March, with the group having targeted a top 10 position among the top mortgage lenders by the end of June 2010. The success of the product – which has seen $60m a month in applications since the launch – has seen FASTLend jump to eighth position, behind the big banks. Delegates at the conference in Palm Cove – which included FAST’s top-performing brokers from each state – also listened to presentations from a number of leading lights from the world of business, including founder of pizza chain Eagle Boys, Tom Potter.
For more on FAST’s
conference, see page 33