Central Bank of Australia has raised interest rate by a quarter point today. It is likely that other countries will follow this measure. As such, the current lowest interest era could soon be over.

Now you finally agree that interest rate will go up sooner than expected.

Btw, I still prefer an all-time low interest as my current savings in banks stay at a low level.

On a different note, does anybody notice the advertisement by CitiGold on 5% interest for savings more than RM300k?

I don't view them as professionals. They are followers instead. I do my own analysis. If I listen to them, I could have made a loss in investment.

When Australia increased interest rate as well as Korea, Indonesia, China and India gave indication of interest increase few months ago, I had already predicted that Malaysia would take action in 2010. However, those locally based analysts still tried giving a feel-good factor saying interest rate in Malaysia would not increase througout the whole year of 2010. Now BNM has indicated an intention to move forward, and all those followers immediately pulled back their previous views.

However, interest hike would affect my property loans which are currently based on BLR.


Correction to my previous post. It should be RM200k.

This post has been edited by winner: Feb 24 2010, 07:21 PM

No. In Dec 2009, none of the local banks expected interest hike. They only changed their mind early this year following BNM's indication to intend to increse OPR.

And now, BNM has just announced an increase in OPR to 2.25%. I guess most of the banks will immediately increase BLR tomorrow but only slowly increase deposit interest rates. Consumers are always thn losers.