A review of things you need to know before you go home on Friday; migrant surge, credit card honey pot, consumers confident, job market strong, IAG doesn't want to to fix it, wholesale rates rise

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

TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
There were no changes announced today.

TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Similarly, there are no TD changes to report.

AN ALL-TIME HIGH
Migration gains broke all previous records in February. Net migration is now adding more than 7,000 new residents a month to the country's population, 45% of them settling in Auckland. However, the importance of student arrivals to this increase cannot be understated - with arrivals from India surging and representing 30.4% of all net arrivals. They are followed by arrivals from China representing 15%, and the UK representing 5.8% in February. More ethan half of all migrants come from these three countries.

A $4 BLN HONEY POT
Following yesterday's news that Westpac have attacked BNZ's credit card advantage, we leaned today that the total NZ credit card market now has balances owed of $6.4 bln, and 65% of that incurs interest.

LOCAL DEMAND UNDERPINS GROWTH
Consumers are confident but less so than at the same time a year ago. A healthy glow is certainly evident says ANZ. That’s a positive sign for a sustainable trend in retail spending. Buoyant levels of consumer sentiment in association with business optimism continue to augur well for the economic expansion. ANZ is picking 3% growth over the year ahead. South Islanders are the pace setters in regards to consumer sentiment. House price expectations at +4.9% remain strong and are even stronger in Auckland at +5.6% pa. 

LOTS OF JOBS, LOTS OF WORKERS
The latest jobs ads survey was out today from ANZ. They report the data suggests continuing steady demand for labour. Over a 3-month average, Auckland has seen the strongest annual total job ad growth of the three main centres, up 13.2%. By the same measure Canterbury ads are up 5.8% and Wellington ads have fallen 4.2% y-on-y. National labour supply has been broadly keeping pace with labour demand thanks to high migration and increasing labour force participation. ANZ's economists expect the unemployment rate to ease only modestly from current 5.7% level over the coming year. 

A KEY MARKET SLOWS
But things are getting tougher in China. Their largest companies reported a worsening in business confidence in March according to the latest MNI China Business Sentiment Survey. The MNI China Business Sentiment Indicator, a gauge of current business sentiment, fell for the third consecutive month to 52.2 in March from 52.8 in February, leaving confidence at the lowest level since October last year. 

BUYING A FIGHT ?
In insurance news, IAG has announced that it is started to pressure its Christchurch policy holders into cash-settling their quake claims. Under the guise of the industry ' commitment' to get their quake claims resolved by the end of 2016, it will now push to offer cash instead of the 'full replacement' commitment they gave in their policies. This will relieve them of construction cost inflation pressures and put it back on their clients. How compliant their policy holders are to this move will be interesting to watch. Looks like a "pressure-from-Sydney-HQ" move to me given how many claims are yet to settle and the level of cost pressure in the Christchurch market.

WHOLESALE RATES SHARPLY LOWER
Against expectations, wholesale swap rates rose today by +2 bps across the whole curve. There was an earlier expectation that the would follow Wall Street down, but that has not turned out to be the case. The 90 day bank bill rate was unchanged at 3.62%.

NZ DOLLAR CLIMBS
Check our real-time charts here.  The NZD climbed today from this mornings opening levels, but it is still lower that where it was at this time yesterday. It is now at 74.3 USc, at 96.9 AUc, and the TWI is at 79.5

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