There's a lot of coded language in business and finance.
Like, when you ask the head of Australia's biggest home lender about whether the Commonwealth Bank will fully pass on a rate cut the Reserve Bank is widely expected to make next Tuesday.
"We've given that close consideration," he told me.
"I can't announce what we might do next week, other than to say we're, of course, acutely aware of how much our customers would be looking forward to rate relief."
In this case, CBA CEO Matt Comyn had a legitimate reason for his cagey response to my question.
The big bank bosses have long been warned off signalling future rates moves by the competition watchdog, which is cautious to avoid any hint of collusion between the four.
But it's clearly both Comyn's sense and common sense that any rate cut this month will be passed on in full.
With a federal election looming within the next three months, management at the big four banks would be fools to make themselves a political target. And fools they are not.
Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn says mortgage hardship will rise again if there is no rate cut in February. (ABC News: Daniel Irvine)
CBA's economists were among the few calling a February rate cut before the most recent inflation data, released at the end of last month, made it a near certainty.
"I think the market's pricing in about a 95 per cent chance of a rate cut. I don't think it's that certain," Comyn told me. His economics team believes it's an 80 per cent likelihood.
"But we do believe that the return to inflation and underlying inflation, importantly, going into the target band, hopefully gives the RBA scope to be able to reduce the cash rate."
Tax and rate cuts couldn't come a moment too soon
Your scribe has had the feeling, shared by a number of analysts and backed by countless readers who get in touch with us, that there's a significant cohort of home owners who've been living on the edge.
Are mortgage risks understated?
Photo shows A 'sold' sticker being placed on a 'for auction' sign outside a house.
Many of them borrowed large sums when a 0.1 per cent cash rate and other RBA stimulus saw some mortgage rates plummet below 2 per cent — an unprecedented low in this country, unlikely to ever be repeated.
Whether they faced the instant shock of rolling off cheap fixed rates in the past couple of years, or endured the steady grind higher of variable rates since May 2022, a large number have been seeking help.
"In the six months [to December 31], we offered 65,000 [customers] financial assistance or support packages," Comyn acknowledged.
"Two-thirds of it related to mortgages. And, of course, alongside that is consumer finance, which includes, like, personal loans, credit cards.
"But, overall, relative to what we've seen over many years, the number of customers that are actually behind in their repayments is very low."
Well, it's no wonder arrears are low when you're giving tens of thousands of your customers repayment holidays, interest-only periods, putting them on longer-loan terms with lower monthly minimum repayments, or using other means of keeping them in their homes.
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When you crunch the numbers, it seems that well over 2 per cent of CBA's mortgage customers received some kind of financial assistance package over the second half of last year.
Presumably, that financial assistance kept many of these borrowers from adding to CBA's 1.25 per cent 30-days arrears rate, while still others not captured in either group would have voluntarily thrown in the towel and sold up to avoid the risk of mortgage default.
That's not to mention the apparently large group of households getting help with either their living expenses or their mortgages from parents or grandparents, as revealed in a recent UBS survey.
Bank of Mum and Dad branches out to living expenses
Photo shows a skyline with houses
Matt Comyn told me the number of customers receiving financial assistance was actually 15 per cent lower than it was in the first half of 2024, as wage rises finally outpaced inflation and most Australians received an income tax cut from July 1.
What that tells you is that Australia appears to have once again narrowly dodged the bullet of rapidly rising rates bankrupting a substantial number of households, just as we did when interest rates plunged in response to the global financial crisis in 2008.
But the CBA boss is wary that the tax cuts and real wages rises alone are probably enough to dig many customers out of their financial holes.
I asked him what might happen to the number of households in financial hardship if the RBA surprises most by holding rates steady next week.
"You would expect a gradual deterioration over the course of 2025 if there wasn't rate relief,"
he replied.
Yet another reason why markets are almost certain the Reserve Bank won't delay a rate cut any longer and a good reason for the major banks to pass it through in full.