* Miners lead gains on ASX
* NAB and ANZ lift home loan rates by 50 bps/annum
* ASX marks first weekly gain in three
Sept 9 (Reuters) - Australian shares on Friday closed at their highest in more than a week, as higher commodity prices lifted miners, and as fears about aggressive policy tightening eased.
The S&P/ASX 200 index ended 0.66% higher at 6,894.2 points. The benchmark also posted its first weekly gain in three.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) signalled on Thursday it was open to slowing the pace of rate hikes in the near term, but uncertainty remained about how much further rates might have to rise to bring demand back into line with supply.
"The RBA is flagging rising inflation till end of the year. It will be hard for them to actually pivot without risking substantial fall in the Australian dollar," said Mathan Somasundaram, chief executive officer at Deep Data Analytics.
The mining sub-index led the gains, climbing 3.6%, as iron ore prices rose to two-week highs.
Mineral Resources was the best performer on the bourse, jumping 15.6% to a record high after the company said it is considering spinning off and listing its lithium operations as a separate entity on the New York Stock Exchange.
Rio Tinto, BHP Group and Fortescue Metals added between 2.7% and 6%.
The financial sub-index rose 0.3%, with all the "Big Four" banks in the positive territory. However, the sub-index logged its fourth consecutive weekly loss.
National Australia Bank and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group said they would lift their home loan interest rate by 50 basis points (bps) per annum.
Energy stocks gained 1.1% as oil prices jumped. Woodside Energy and Santos climbed 1.3% and 1%, respectively.
Embattled data forensics firm Nuix pared gains to close up 23.9%, after briefly surging on takeover speculations but shares dropped after company confirmed it had not received any bid or a written proposal.
New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index closed 0.7% higher at 11,757.77 points. (Reporting by Riya Sharma in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh.V)
