Oct 17 (Reuters) -Australian shares hit a record high on Thursday, buoyed by strong gains in local banks and energy stocks, while investors wait for a local jobs data report due later in the day in order to assess the country's central bank's interest rate trajectory.

The S&P/ASX 200 index .AXJO rose as much as 1% to 8,364.7 points, before paring some gains, by 2337 GMT. The benchmark closed down 0.4% on Wednesday.

Markets are on watch for Australian employment figures due later on Thursday for cues on the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) stance on interest rates.

The RBA has not ruled out either a rate hike or a cut, depending on the data to follow in the near term, according to its minutes earlier this month.

Interest-rate sensitive domestic financial stocks .AXFJ shored up the benchmark index, rising 1.1% as the "Big Four" banks moved up between 1% and 1.4%.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia CBA.AX, one of the "Big Four" as the country's largest bank, was 1.6% higher.

The lender was fined A$7.5 million ($4.99 million) by the local communications watchdog for sending over 170 million spam messages to customers.

Local energy stocks .AXEJ were the largest percentage gainers on the ASX 200 index, rising 1.7% despite oil prices falling. O/R

Sector major Santos STO.AX rose 1.2% even as the country's second-largest oil and gas producer posted a 3% sequential drop in third-quarter revenue on Thursday.

Local miners .AXMM on the benchmark rose 0.7%, while the world's biggest listed miner, BHP Group BHP.AX, was flat, as the company beat first-quarter iron ore output estimates on Thursday, and saw higher copper production for the quarter.

Meanwhile, the New Zealand benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index .NZ50 rose marginally by 0.2% to 12,671.95 points in early trade.

Inflation in the country returned to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's target range of 1% to 3% in the third quarter, which could open up doors for the country's central bank to continue cutting interest rates aaggressively.

($1 = 1.5017 Australian dollars)

Reporting by Shivangi Lahiri in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona

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