At its meeting today, the Board decided to increase the cash rate target by 25 basis points to 4.10 per cent. It also increased the interest rate paid on Exchange Settlement balances by 25 basis points to 4.00 per cent. Inflation in Australia has passed its peak, but at 7 per cent is still too high and it will be some time yet before it is back in the target range. This further increase in interest rates is to provide greater confidence that inflation will return to target within a reasonable timeframe. High inflation makes life difficult for people and damages the functioning of the economy. It erodes the value of ... (full story)

AUD/USD gains near 50 basis points (bps) on the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) second surprise rate hike during early Tuesday. That said, the Aussie pair initially jumped to 0.6673 on the RBA’s verdict before retreating to 0.6668 by the press time. That said, RBA defies market forecasts of announcing no change to its benchmark interest rate by fueling the key rate to 4.10% at the latest. It’s worth noting that the Australian central bank surprised markets in the previous monetary policy meeting with a 0.25% rate increase and hence some traders on the floor expected such a move ahead of the Interest Rate Decision. ... (full story)