Commonwealth Bank sees customer leaving over interest rate hike

The bank raised its home loan rate by almost double the Reserve Bank's interest 0.25% official rate rise to fund its increasing costs.

The Commonwealth Bank has had to bring dozens of extra staff into its home loans division to deal with an exodus of angry customers enraged by its interest rate hike.

An extra 40 staff had to be drafted to field calls from customers wanting to leave the bank or find out details of the impact of its decision to increase the rate on its home loans by 0.45 per cent.

Between 20 and 25 extra staff are still in the home loans division after what the bank confirmed was an unprecedented torrent of calls after its Melbourne Cup day rate increase.

A spokesman for the bank, Bryan Fitzgerald, said “the majority of people were making inquiries” about the impact of the increase on their home loan and others were asking how much it would cost to take their business elsewhere.
"At the moment there are an additional 25 telephone operators in place," Mr Fitzgerald told news.com.au.

The bank would continue to try and meet its standard of responding to calls from customers within 48 hours, he said.

View the full story in news.com.au.