A comparison of the Australian target cash rate and the overnight interbank lending rate shows that, after around a decade of being identical, the economic impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic led to the actual overnight lending rate being lower than the Reserve Bank of Australia's target rate. This means that banks are lending to each other at lower rates than the "official" interest rate. One reason for this is the that the Reserve bank has made money available to banks in several new ways over this period (such as repo agreements where banks can pledge assets for short term funds), increasing liquidity in the banking system. As of May 2024, the overnight interbank cash rate and the target cash rate stood at 4.32 and 4.35 percent, respectively.

The benchmark interest rate in Australia was last recorded at 4.10 percent. This dataset provides - Australia Interest Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

The interest rate of bank accepted bills/negotiable certificates of deposit for Australian banks has fallen slightly over the last decade. From a peak of around five percent from late 2010 to late 2011, interest rates on three and six month bills/certificates had fallen to 0.01 and 0.03 percent respectively as of September 2021 . Notably, these rates were below the the official Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) target cash rate of 0.1 percent. Primarily, the reason for this is that the RBA was more concerned with ensuring banks have liquidity than intervening so that the cash rate is consistent with its target rate, and to this end RBA used new methods to inject funds into banks since the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. As of May 2024, the interest rates on three and six month bills/certificates increased to 4.36 and 4.61 percent, respectively.