Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe enjoyed a taxpayer-subsidised half-price mortgage

Philip Lowe enjoyed a taxpayer-­subsidised half-price mortgage loan to buy his five-bedroom home in Sydney’s eastern suburbs – on top of his salary now worth more than $1m a year.

Philip Lowe’s interest rate was locked at half the standard variable rate being paid by Commonwealth Bank customers across Australia under a public service perk. Picture: Nikki Short

Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe enjoyed a taxpayer-­subsidised half-price mortgage loan to buy his five-bedroom home in Sydney’s eastern suburbs – on top of his generous salary now worth more than $1m a year.

For some years, Dr Lowe’s interest rate was locked at half the standard variable rate being paid by Commonwealth Bank customers across Australia under a public service perk. Eleven staff still enjoy the same perk.

The revelation comes as 880,000 Australians brace for fixed-rate mortgages to end this year and after a 10th-straight interest rate increase on Tuesday, with the official cash rate at 3.6 per cent.

Land title documents, obtained by Sky News Australia, reveal Dr Lowe took out two loans to purchase the property for $1,075,000 in 1997.

Up to $241,000 was loaned by the RBA to him at the heavily discounted rate and another $151,000 was borrowed directly from Commonwealth Bank.

The documents suggest neither loan has been discharged but an RBA spokeswoman said they were paid off “several years ago” and he no longer had a mortgage. Dr Lowe, who started working at the bank in 1980, was among those who took up a staff offer of concessional loans, pegged at half the CBA rate.

The Officers’ Home Advances Scheme courted controversy 20 years ago when it was revealed that almost a quarter of RBA staff in 2003 were benefiting from the mortgages heavily subsidised by taxpayers.

At the time, the bank refused to reveal who had taken out mortgages under the scheme, which was scrapped in 2001.

A real estate listing from 1997 describes Dr Lowe’s property as a “freestanding home of Victorian vintage with all features you’ve been dying to find … soaring ceilings, marble fireplaces, polished wide beamed timber floors”.

Dr Lowe courted criticism in February when he decided not to speak publicly at the National Press Club following a meeting of the RBA board and instead attend a private lunch hosted by investment bank Barrenjoey to talk to bond traders from the big four banks. He had already been under fire for earlier statements that interest rates were unlikely to rise until at least 2024, a prediction he has conceded was an “embarrassing error”.

Jim Chalmers is yet to decide whether he will reappoint the governor when his seven-year term expires on September 17.

The Treasurer, who is still awaiting the outcome of an independent review into the central bank, in February told Sunday Agenda he would decide closer to the middle of the year. “After we get the Reserve Bank review at the end of March and consider its recommendations, but the review and the appointment won’t be about any one decision or set of decisions,” Dr Chalmers said. “It will be about who is best placed to take the Bank forward into the future, based on what we run with … but that doesn’t change (the fact) I have a very good, very respectful relationship with Phil Lowe. I have (had) for a long time, he’s got a difficult job to do, get on top of this inflation without crunching the economy.”

Olivia Caisley is a Sky News political reporter