A review of things you need to know before you go home on Friday; important home loan rate cuts, strong tourism growth, surplus hard to achieve, swap rates rise

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

TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Today, ASB started out with lower rates for 3 and 5 year fixed rates, but they weren't particularly competitive changes. BankDirect, Sovereign and NZ Home Loans have made the same changes. Much more interesting is that BNZ launched a market leading two year 'special' at 5.15%.

TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
There were no changes announced today. But we did a review of how our retail interest rates compare with those offered in Australia. That showed we are still much better off than our big cousins.

TAKE CARE
Kiwibank is looking to raise up to $150m of regulatory capital via issue of perpetual, non-cumulative, unsecured, subordinated securities to the public. These are the type of 'hybrid' securities that retail investors should be very wary of. But they have selected ForsythBarr, Macquarie and Craigs/Deutsche as their distribution partners, all of whom specialise in distribution to retail investors.

BUBBLING ON
Tourist accommodation demand was higher in February than January on a seasonal basis, but growth cooled from the same month a year ago. The occupancy rate however reached an all-time record high.

SISTER SCHOOLS
Twenty schools across the country have received $50,000 in total to strengthen their Chinese sister school relationships.

OUR IRON ORE?
Westpac said today that the Canterbury rebuild is finally peaking, with construction set to tail off soon. It compared the likely impact on the NZ economy to the end of Aussie mining boom.

ON TARGET
An official Report was released today on our 2013 greenhouse gas emissions. They were 1.4% lower than in 2012 and we are apparently on target to meet our 2020 greenhouse gas emmissions commitments.

MAY NOT QUITE MAKE IT
Finance Minister admitted today that the long targeted surplus for 2014/15 is now less likely because of low inflation. Treasury reported that the Budget back in deficit in the 8 months to February even though the results are better than forecast.

WHOLESALE RATES RISE AGAIN
Wholesale swap rates rose +3 bp today across the whole curve. However, the 90 day bank bill rate was unchanged at 3.63%.

NZ DOLLAR HOLDING
The NZ dollar was basically unchanged today in very quiet trading. As of late this afternoon it is at 75.7 USc, 98.3 AUc, and the TWI is at 80.9.  Check our real-time charts here.

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