ANZ's economists expect the Reserve Bank to sit still. As Australian Broker reported, the major bank anticipates a hold at the 10-11 August meeting and for the rest of the year, as inflation eases and unemployment ticks up. The forecast comes with a caveat: ANZ still reads a "hawkish bias" from the board, meaning the door to further tightening stays open.
The numbers behind the call: headline CPI rose 3.8% in June, down from 4% in May and below the RBA's own 4% forecast. Trimmed mean sat at 3.6%. Unemployment held at 4.4%. The cash rate has been at 4.35% since three lifts earlier this year.
What a hold means if you borrow
A pause is not a cut. If the RBA holds, variable business facilities priced off the cash rate stay roughly where they are, and the pricing you're seeing now is the pricing you keep working with. No relief, but no fresh increase either.
The more useful signal for commercial borrowers is buried in ANZ's note: construction. The bank flags a record construction pipeline and warns that competition for scarce labour and materials could keep construction-related inflation elevated even as the broader figure cools. If you're funding a build, quoting fixed-price work, or carrying trade payables, that's the line to watch. Input costs staying sticky matters more to your margins than a 25-point move in the cash rate.
One broker quoted in the piece framed the case for patience plainly: three rises then a hold means the full effect hasn't washed through yet, and cutting now would be "premature." That logic cuts both ways. A hold buys time to see where your own costs land before you refinance or extend.
Markets and brokers both lean toward a hold this month. Forecasts are not decisions, and the RBA has surprised before. We'll log the actual number on 11 August.