The home loan loyalty tax: do existing customers pay more?

What the RBA found in 2020

In its February 2020 Statement on Monetary Policy, the RBA examined whether borrowers with older mortgages pay higher rates. It found:

• Variable-rate loans taken out four or more years earlier had interest rates around 40 basis points (0.40 percentage points) higher than new loans.
• On a $250,000 balance the RBA put that at roughly $1,000 more in interest a year.
• The difference in rates between new and outstanding variable-rate loans increased with the age of the loan.
• One reason the RBA gave: banks offer larger discounts to new and refinancing borrowers, rather than cutting standard variable rates, so they can compete for new borrowers without lowering the rates charged to existing borrowers.

That was a finding about the market in 2020. It is not a statement about any lender today.

What the RBA's latest table shows

The RBA publishes average housing lending rates in table F6. The version published on 8 October 2026 (data to August 2026, checked 2 November 2026) shows, for owner-occupier loans at all institutions:

At one decimal place, the average outstanding variable rate and the average new variable rate are the same. Two cautions apply. First, these are averages across all lenders and loans, and the average includes borrowers who have already negotiated or refinanced. Second, an average does not describe your loan. Another RBA analysis, in its March 2023 Bulletin, noted that many borrowers who rolled off a fixed rate onto a variable rate went on to reduce that rate by negotiating or refinancing, especially those of higher credit quality.

Where your loan sits in the advertised market

RateSonar cannot see what you pay. It records the rates lenders advertise. For standard owner-occupier variable loans (principal and interest) from lenders anyone can join, as at 2 Nov 2026:

• the lowest advertised rate is 5.69% (Aaa Financial Corporation Portfolio Loan, for borrowers borrowing up to 90% of the property value);
• the middle is 6.74%;
• half of the 429 loans sit between 6.39% and 7.45%.

The four major banks' lowest standard variable loans run from 6.34% to 6.79%:

If your rate is above the middle of the market for a loan like yours, that does not prove you are being overcharged. Your deposit, loan size, features and the lender's conditions all matter. It is a good reason to ask. On a $600,000 loan over 30 years, a gap of 1.05 percentage points (the distance from the lowest advertised rate to the middle) is worth about $409 a month, by RateSonar's arithmetic with the rate held constant.

How to check your own rate

1. Find your rate on your latest statement or in online banking.
2. Open home loan rates and find the lowest advertised rate for your kind of loan, and the middle.
3. Look at your lender's page, for example Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, NAB or ANZ, to see what it advertises to new customers now.
4. Check rate changes to see whether your lender moved when others did.
5. Ask for a lower rate (script) or refinance.

RateSonar's lender history starts in June 2026. It can show whether a lender's advertised rate has changed since then, but not a lender's rate to existing customers. Rate history also shows the RBA's monthly market series back to 1959, labelled as market context, not as a lender's price.