Australian Housing Inflation
A reflection on the source of domestic inflation - housing
Housing is now contributing more to Australian inflation than every tradable good and service combined.
Benchmark Analytics
Independent economic and financial services analysis
Original analysis of new Australian economic and financial-services data.
Latest analysis
Big Four Banks
The big four banks are losing mortgage market share
Australia’s four major banks still dominate home lending, but their grip on the mortgage market has been steadily weakening.
APRA’s August 2026 banking statistics show ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, NAB and Westpac together holding $1.83 trillion of housing loans, equivalent to 73.0 per cent of the market.
RBA Financial Stability Review
Six key insights from the RBA Financial Stability Report
Australian banks and mortgage borrowers remain surprisingly resilient. But the RBA's latest Financial Stability Review shows the next generation of financial risks is emerging in private credit, superannuation, AI and critical technology infrastructure.
Bank of Queensland
BOQ is shrinking mortgages to grow its business bank
Bank of Queensland is deliberately changing the composition of its balance sheet — shrinking its mortgage book while putting more capital into business lending.
The strategy is now clearly visible in APRA’s monthly banking statistics.
In August 2026, BOQ had $50.7 billion of housing loans, down 7.6 per
Inflation
Australia’s inflation data now tells two quite different stories
August’s inflation shock came from fuel. But beneath the headline, three-quarters of Australia’s annual inflation contribution remains concentrated in non-tradables.
Benchmark Indicators
Australian economy at a glance
Political Data Alerts
Know what the new data means.
Priority monitoring and rapid analysis of the releases that matter to government relations, corporate affairs and policy teams.
More analysis
Job Vacancies
Job vacancies point to a softer private labour market
Australian job vacancies fell again in August, but the headline conceals a sharper decline in private-sector labour demand. Vacancies per unemployed worker have almost halved from their 2022 peak.
CBA
CBA is closing the gap on NAB in business banking
National Australia Bank has traditionally been Australia’s main business bank. For more than two decades, NAB has held a leading position in business lending, supported by a large specialist business banking network and strong franchises in areas such as agriculture, health and commercial property.
That leadership remains intact. But
Australian Fuel Inflation
Chalmers Has One Point, Fuel Did Explain More Than 100% of August CPI Rise
One component added more to August CPI than the entire CPI actually rose. The detailed ABS numbers explain how.
AI Investment Boom
The AI investment boom has arrived in the economic data
New US and Australian figures reveal surging investment in AI-related infrastructure. Explore the numbers and what they mean for Australia's productivity.
Macquarie Bank
Macquarie Bank growth: APRA data sharpens CBA capital debate
APRA’s August 2026 banking statistics show Macquarie Bank with $366.2 billion of resident assets, up 22.7 per cent over the past year, compared with growth of 6.6 per cent across the banking system.
The expansion is concentrated where Macquarie competes directly with the majors. Its housing
Card Surcharges
Explainer: Why Australia's 23-year card surcharge experiment is ending
Australia deliberately enabled card surcharging in 2003 to improve payment price signals and merchant bargaining power. Twenty-three years later, the RBA has concluded that the system no longer works as intended.
Australian Household Spending
Household spending flat as RBA weighs rate rise in a few hours
Household spending stalled in August after strong gains in June and July. The result gives the RBA some evidence demand is slowing, but underlying spending and inflation remain firm.
Yep, Costello taxed more than Chalmers...but borrowed much less
How much tax Australia collects relative to the size of the economy has changed substantially over the past six decades. A debate is raging as to which Australian Treasurer taxed the most.
Using the ABS Modellers’ Database, Benchmark Analytics has calculated a quarterly tax-to-GDP measure by combining indirect