Christopher Kent's August speech confirmed that deposit rates have risen along with lending rates this year, but the Reserve Bank's published material says far less about savers than borrowers, and the gaps are worth spelling out.

Most commentary on the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) four cash rate increases in 2026 has centred on mortgage holders. That is understandable. As Governor Michele Bullock put it at her 29 September media conference: "Those who have mortgages, yes, this clearly impacts them and it hurts them."

But rate rises have two sides. In a speech titled "The Restrictive Stance of Monetary Policy", delivered in Sydney on 13 August 2026, Assistant Governor (Financial Markets) Christopher Kent noted that lending and deposit rates have both risen. For households with money in the bank, that is the other half of the story.

What Kent said, and what he didn't

What exactly did Kent say about deposits?

Kent's central message was that "the three cash rate increases earlier this year are having their intended effects". As part of that assessment, he observed that lending and deposit rates had risen and that housing credit growth had slowed.

He also judged that "financial conditions overall are somewhat restrictive" and that "The current cash rate is around the top of the range of central estimates of the neutral rate". When he spoke, the cash rate was 4.35 per cent. The Monetary Policy Board has since raised it by 25 basis points to 4.60 per cent, effective 30 September.

Kent's remarks, as summarised in the material available, do not specify how far deposit rates have risen, which products moved most, or whether deposit rates have kept pace with lending rates. Those details are not in the information reviewed for this article, so no comparison of the size of the moves can be made here.

Does a higher cash rate automatically mean higher savings rates?

Not automatically, and the RBA does not set the rates banks pay on deposits. What Kent described was an observed outcome: deposit rates have risen during a period in which the cash rate has been lifted. The same speech noted lending rates had risen too.

The RBA's material does not say whether further increases, including the September move, have flowed through to deposit products.

Savers, offsets and buffers

Who holds the savings?

RBA material points to two pools of money relevant to this question.

  • Offset accounts. At the 29 September media conference, Bullock said "a lot of people have a mortgage, and then they have an offset account, which sits in the background." She added that "the amount of money in those offset accounts has actually grown quite a lot over the last decade or so." Money in an offset account typically reduces the interest charged on a linked mortgage rather than earning a deposit rate directly, so for these households higher rates show up mainly as a larger interest saving on the offset balance.
  • Buffers held by stretched borrowers. The October 2026 Financial Stability Review (FSR) found that the share of variable-rate owner-occupiers with a cash-flow shortfall "remains relatively low at around 2 per cent", and that most of those in shortfall have savings to cover it for at least six months.

The broader money supply is also still growing. The RBA's August 2026 Financial Aggregates show broad money up 0.1 per cent in the month and 6.9 per cent over the year.

So are savers better off overall?

This is where the published material cannot give a clean answer. Several facts point in different directions:

  1. Deposit rates have risen, according to Kent.
  2. Inflation is still above the 2–3 per cent target. Headline CPI rose 4.0 per cent over the year to August 2026. Underlying inflation has been about 3.5 per cent for the past six months, Bullock said on 29 September, and the trimmed mean measure was 3.6 per cent in the June quarter.
  3. The FSR found that real household disposable income per capita declined slightly over the first half of 2026, though it remains higher than its 2023 and 2024 averages.

Whether a particular saver is ahead in real terms depends on the rate they actually earn, their tax position and how their own spending basket has moved relative to the CPI. None of that is captured in RBA aggregates, and this article does not attempt to estimate it.

What can be said is that savers and borrowers are often the same people. Many households with mortgages also hold offset balances or deposits, so the "winner and loser" framing is less tidy in practice than in headlines.

Why it matters, and what comes next

Why does the RBA care about deposit rates at all?

Kent's observation about deposit rates sat within his broader judgement that financial conditions are "somewhat restrictive". In general economic terms, when both borrowing costs and the return on saving rise, spending today becomes relatively less attractive than saving. Bullock has said the cash-flow channel affecting mortgage holders is only one of several channels, and that according to RBA research "the most important channel is the exchange rate channel."

The Board's objective is inflation. Bullock said on 29 September that "Higher interest rates are needed to ensure inflation returns to target." The August minutes forecast underlying inflation to stay above 3 per cent until mid-2027 and to be around 2½ per cent in late 2027.

What's coming up?

The minutes of the September Board meeting are due at 11.30 am AEDT on Tuesday 13 October 2026, and Kent is scheduled for an interview on News 24 with Ross Greenwood on 18 October and a fireside chat at the Commonwealth Bank Global Markets Conference on 19 October. What either occasion will cover is not known in advance. The September CPI is released on 28 October, and the Board's next decision is at 2.30 pm on 3 November.

The bottom line

Kent's August speech confirmed that deposit rates, as well as lending rates, have risen through this year's tightening cycle. Beyond that statement, the RBA material reviewed here offers no figures on how far deposit rates have moved or how they compare with loan rates, so any claim that savers have "won" from higher rates goes beyond the evidence. What the RBA has documented is that offset balances have grown strongly over the past decade, that most borrowers in cash-flow shortfall have savings buffers, and that inflation, at 4.0 per cent headline and about 3.5 per cent underlying, remains above target.