The Big Four banks have split four ways on what the Reserve Bank does next. Westpac is now warning of two more hikes before Christmas while ANZ, NAB, CBA and HSBC see cuts on the horizon. Retail stocks rallied on the prospect last week (Temple & Webster up 13 per cent, Nick Scali up nearly 12), and the ACCC just fined another retailer $15 million for a fake sitewide sale. We line up what it means for your June dollars, plus five fresh Australian sales.
Big Four Banks Split Four Ways On The RBA
The Reserve Bank cash rate is sitting at 4.35 per cent and the Big Four economists can no longer agree on which way it moves next. Westpac chief economist Luci Ellis is the outlier, telling clients that the RBA will hike twice more this cycle, once in August and again in September, with markets having “underestimated the strength of the labour market” and noting that “increases are still forthcoming.” Reporting on the split by Tamika Seeto at Yahoo Finance Australia lays out the four positions in one place.
The other three majors disagree. ANZ head of Australian economics Adam Boyton expects the cash rate to hold for the rest of 2026, with two cuts pencilled in for the second half of 2027, telling clients that “rate cuts appear to be the next phase of monetary adjustments.” CBA senior economist Belinda Allen agrees: “We uphold this perspective and continue to predict rate cuts.” NAB chief economist Sally Auld has pulled her August hike call entirely, now forecasting three cuts in 2027 starting in the second quarter and saying flatly: “The next adjustment to the cash rate is likely to be a decrease.” HSBC chief economist Paul Bloxham sees the first cut in the third quarter of 2027, citing “timely indicators (that) suggest a more pronounced weakening ahead.”
For households, the gap between the two camps is real money. The current 4.35 per cent rate is adding roughly $272 a month to repayments on a $600,000 25-year mortgage compared with a 3.85 per cent setting, so two more Westpac-style hikes would lift that to closer to $550 a month over the same loan. The opposite scenario, the cuts the other three banks have penned in, would unwind that pressure through 2027. Either way, the message for the next six months is that the cash of carry has not yet eased, and discretionary budgets are still doing the heavy lifting.
Retail Stocks Just Had Their Best Week Of The Year
Investors are clearly leaning towards the cuts camp. The S&P/ASX 200 Consumer Discretionary index added 8.05 per cent in the week to Friday 12 June, its strongest weekly print of 2026. Bronwyn Allen at Motley Fool Australia notes the standouts were Temple & Webster (up 13.09 per cent), Nick Scali (up 11.71), Light & Wonder (up 9.8), Wesfarmers (up 9.55, the owner of Kmart, Bunnings and Officeworks), Lottery Corp (up 8.81), Lovisa (up 8.66), Super Retail Group (up 8.39, the owner of Rebel and BCF), Harvey Norman (up 7.88), JB Hi-Fi (up 7.6) and Eagers Automotive (up 7.06).
The driver was a brutal consumer sentiment print. Westpac\’s monthly consumer sentiment index fell 3.5 per cent in June to 80.6, near 50-year lows and well below the 100 line that separates optimism from pessimism, per the Macrobusiness round-up. Inflation has also eased to 4.2 per cent in April from 4.6 per cent in March. The market is reading both signals the same way: enough softness for the RBA to start cutting eventually, and a recovery in household spending power once it does.
The shopper takeaway is simple. If you have been holding off on a big-ticket purchase (a sofa, a TV, a laptop), the next twelve months should bring genuinely lower asking prices as retailers compete harder for the cautious consumer. EOFY is the first front in that fight, and Australian retailers are pricing aggressively right now precisely because sentiment is so weak.
Beware The Fake Sitewide: Another $15m Fine
That competitive pressure is also why fake “sitewide” sales keep landing in court. Online mattress retailer Emma Sleep was just hit with a $15 million Federal Court penalty for misleading sale price representations, the same misleading discount conduct that has caught Coles, JB Hi-Fi, Michael Hill, MyHouse and Hairhouse Online over the past twelve months, per the JD Supra competition law round-up. The maximum penalty under the Australian Consumer Law was doubled to $100 million in March, so we should expect bigger numbers from here.
For shoppers chasing genuine EOFY discounts, the warning from Hall & Wilcox associate Ben Hamilton is the most useful test: “the disclaimers or \’fine print\’ won\’t protect a business if the overall impression is misleading,” he wrote in a 12 June client alert. In other words, if the headline says 30 per cent off everything but the asterisks exclude half the catalogue, that is the kind of claim the ACCC is now treating as a $15 million risk. A quick browser-based price-history tracker (free on most big AU sites) is still the fastest way to verify a “was/now” claim before you tap pay.
Five Aussie Stores, Five Categories
Five stores. Five categories. Today\’s sweep of every retailer on It\’s On Sale, audited at dawn for stock and AU fulfilment.
Discount
SportitudeActive WearUp to 50% off Sportitude’s sale: running shoes, footy boots, training apparel and recovery gear from the Adelaide-headquartered Australian active-wear retailer, with free shipping on orders over $99 and 60-day returns.50%OFF2
TelstraTelecommunicationsUp to 50% off Telstra’s deals: bundled phone plans, refurbished handsets, mobile broadband and accessories from the ASX-listed Australian telco, with same-day click-and-collect at any of its 250-plus stores.50%OFF3
TypoStationeryUp to 50% off Typo’s sale: planners, notebooks, desk accessories, novelty gifts and tech sleeves from the Cotton On Group-owned Australian stationery brand, with free standard shipping over $55.50%OFF4
Jac + JackFashionUp to 40% off Jac + Jack’s sale: cashmere knits, silk shirts, tailored trousers and outerwear from the Sydney-founded luxury basics label, with free returns and complimentary Australian shipping over $200.40%OFF5
Lee MathewsWomen's WearUp to 40% off Lee Mathews’ sale: linen dresses, blouses, knitwear and tailored pieces from the Sydney-based womenswear designer, with complimentary AU shipping on full-priced orders and easy returns.40%OFF% discounts shown are indicative across each store\’s sale range. Individual product savings vary.
Our Take
The Big Four banks splitting four ways on the RBA tells you something every shopper already knows: nobody is calling the bottom of this cycle with confidence. What we can call is the retailer behaviour. With sentiment near 50-year lows, every Australian-owned store with stock to move is leaning harder into headline discounts (some genuine, some priced up the week before the sale started), and the ACCC is now landing $15 million penalties on the worst offenders. The shopper job for the next fortnight is to verify before you trust, and to spend where the warranty, returns and ACL protections actually live, which is with Australian-owned retailers that fulfil locally.
That is the gap It\’s On Sale was built to close. We aggregate 35,000 Australian stores and 45,000 live products in one place, every store Australian-owned and locally fulfilled. The Today\’s Sales page surfaces every retailer currently running a promotion (audited daily), our AI search reads the way you actually ask for a deal, and we never carry Temu, Shein, AliExpress or any offshore marketplace dressed up as a local store. In an economy where headlines lie and budgets are tight, that filtering is the savings. It is free, it is Australian, and it is built to keep your EOFY honest. Browse Today\’s Sales before the 30 June clock runs out.
