A review of things you need to know before you go home on Monday; retail rates fall, Treasury sees no hikes imminent, terms of trade descends, debtor students paying up, swap rates fall

Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.

TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
ASB has matched the recent ANZ 'special' rate changes, reintroduced an 18 month 'special', now has market's lowest 18 month and 4 year home loan rates. BNZ has raised its 3 yr rate.

TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
ANZ has cut some term deposit rates for terms 18 mths to 5 years.

TREASURY SEES NOT RATE RISES
The November Monthly Economic Indicator review was released today by Treasury. They note that increased employment has reduced spare capacity in the labour market "but weak price pressures have reduced the prospect of interest rate increases over the year ahead".

THE GLOSS COMES OFF
New Zealand's terms of trade fell by 4.4% in the September quarter, in line with market expectations. The fall was driven entirely by the exports side, and in particular an 11.4% drop in dairy product prices. Other export prices were mixed, with gains in meat up +4.3% and wool up +3.3%. Going the other way were wood products down -3.9% and manufactured goods  down -0.7%. The terms of trade is a slightly dated picture of our export performance. Dairy prices have continued to fall sharply September and so more falls in our terms of trade are expected.

MORE KIWISAVER DETAIL
The RBNZ today released deeper data on the Funds management industry. That shows that 54.1% of KiwiSaver funds are invested in New Zealand, 45.9% invested outside the country. But that is only because all the funds' cash deposits are here and they represent almost 11% of the funds invested. Excluding that its almost a 50/50 split.

TARGETING STUDENT DEBTORS
The Government initiative aimed at "encouraging" overseas student loan debtors to start repaying their loans has now netted $150 million in additional payments, and the pace of collection is picking up.

FONTERRA HIRES A KIWI
Alan van der Nagel has joined Fonterra to head up their international farming operations. "The purpose of International Farming is to provide a high quality, safe and traceable supply of milk as part of our integrated supply chain in our key markets, and a key strategic focus in the short to medium-term is China."

WHOLESALE RATES
Swap rates fell and flattened again today. They were unchanged for one year, down -2 bps for 4 years to -4 bps for 10 yrs. This flattens the curve further after the New York declines. The 90 day bank bill rate was unchanged at 3.67%.

OUR CURRENCY HOLDS
Check our real-time charts here. The NZ dollar fell against the greenback and rose again against the Aussie. It is now at 78.1 USc, at 92.4 AUc, and the TWI is at 78.5.

You can now see an animation of this chart. Click on it, or click here.