A review of things you need to know before you go home on Monday; Westpac cuts, credit card use revealed, Kiwibank's high leverage dividend plan, Heartland's low leverage result, swap rates rise

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

TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Westpac cut its 2 year home loan rate to 5.39% matching the other majors in the market but not really challenging the 5.19% rate from SBS Bank or HSBC's 5.29% rate for that term.

TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
There were no changes announced for these rates today.

VERY HIGH RATES FOR VERY LOW RISK
Credit card growth in January was in line with the track over the past year. Balances outstanding grew a bit less than +5% from a year ago to $6.355 bln making its usual fall post Christmas. (Only $42 mln or 0.7% is 90 days past due showing that while the interest rates are very high indeed, this is actually not high risk business for banks.) The use of credit cards locally only grew +2.2% year-on-year while their use overseas was up +9.2% giving a good indication how we are taking advantage of the high exchange rate. Overseas visitor use of cards within NZ also grew a very healthy +7.5% pa.

KIWIBANK TO PAY A DIVIDEND?
Kiwibank has posted a +36% rise in half-year profit to a record $71 mln. Their net interest margin was up +30 basis points. Leverage however is still a very high 17 times capital, way higher than its peers. Owner NZ Post signaled it is about time the bank started paying a dividend. However that might undermine claims that the state-owned bank's growth is being inhibited by inadequate capital - not to mention making progress with the excessive leverage.

HEARTLAND HITS PROFIT TARGET
Heartland Bank met its profit target with a $23.5 mln interim result to December 2014 but it says its reverse equity business achieved lower than expected new levels of business. Heartland Bank is only leveraged 6.8 times, the lowest level of any bank operating in New Zealand.

FMA PROBE NO BAR TO GONG
The Morningstar KiwiSaver fund manager finalists have been announced and are ANZ Investments, Milford Asset Management, and Westpac. It is a surprise to see Milford in there given that the FMA is investigating them.

BENEFIT RISES
On April 1 NZ Super will go up by $11.60 per week for married superannuitants, up +2.07%. Other benefits will rise +0.51%. 

WHOLESALE RATE RISES SLOW
Our swap rates carried on with the up trend today but with less fervor. Our swap rates are up +1 and +3 bps across the curve and still steepening. The 90 day bank bill rate fell another -1 bp to 3.62%.

NZ DOLLAR FLAT-LINING
Check our real-time charts here. There was virtually no change in our exchange rates today from where we opened this morning. We are still at 75.3 USc, at 95.9 AUc , and the TWI is at 78.5.

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