A survey by Bank of South Australia (BankSA) showed that consumers were not at all concerned on the rising cash rates and consumer confidence had largely returned to the record levels seen in 2003 and 2006, right before the global financial crisis.

BankSA managing director Rob Chapman noted though that business confidence suffered a bit amidst a solidly performing local economy as he warned that "renewed volatility in global financial markets over the past two weeks meant there was a need for some caution in the immediate economic outlook."

He maintained that South Australian economy is doing well with a sound fundamentals but a certain amount of uncertainty has been hovering as brought about by volatile global financial markets.

The survey polled 300 consumers and 300 businesses from May 12 to 16 and found that 78 percent of consumers held positive outlook on their household finances, coming from the 75 percent posted in a previous study, while up to 58 percent had expressed confidence that the spending environment would only improve.

On the other hand, about 54 percent of the business sectors questioned were optimistic that the business climate would be a lot better over the next 12 months while 61 percent believed that their own business outlook would improve.

Mr Chapman pointed out that the survey figures showed that business establishments were confident that internal factors like productivity and industrial harmony have seen improvements though he noted that external factors were of great importance to business owners.

He said that business owners are generally sensitive to external variables such as petrol prices, commodity prices, rainfall and interest rates which point to the reality that "business confidence is still being affected to a degree by the global economic outlook."