Australian borrowers have been hit with 12 interest rate hikes since the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) embarked on a monetary tightening policy in May 2022, causing many to fall into mortgage stress.
However, some economists have warned the ordeal is far from over, as they expect the official cash rate to reach as high as 4.85 percent before an end is in sight.
Following the RBA’s decision to raise the official cash rate to 4.1 percent on June 6, Marcel Thieliant, the head of Asia-Pacific at global business research firm Capital Economics, predicted that the rate would eventually go up to 4.85 percent in September, posing a risk of plunging the Australian economy into a mild recession in the second half of 2023….