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A review of things you need to know before you go home on Thursday; McDermott changes the tone, tourism booms, another hybrid warning, more migrants, lower interest and fx rates

A review of things you need to know before you go home on Thursday; McDermott changes the tone, tourism booms, another hybrid warning, more migrants, lower interest and fx rates

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

TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
There are no home loan rate changes to report today.

TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Nor are there any term deposit rate changes today either.

A MINI MPS
RBNZ assistant governor McDermott had a set piece speech today in Hamilton that was closely watched. What he said moved markets. Firstly he revealed the RBNZ is not ruling out an OCR cut. Secondly, he noted that future inflation may be tamer that survey respondents think. And thirdly, even though the current evidence is that the economy is expanding faster and the output gap is closed, they are keeping a close eye on events that could reverse this progress. The currency markets reacted to his comments, as did the interest rate markets. Both fell.

TOURISM BOOMS
Visitor arrivals reached 291,800 in March, a record high for a March month. The latest figure was 15% higher than in March 2014, and 8% higher than in March 2013. The Cricket World Cup helped drive the records.

MORE BANK HYBRID WARNINGS
The FMA has issued a warning document on investing in Capital Notes. "Capital notes are often issued by well-known banks, but are riskier than bank deposits. They may not be suitable for many investors. A household name and high headline rate of return alone are not good reasons to invest. You also need to understand the complex and potentially risky nature of these investments, and whether they are suitable for you."

ARRIVING DIVERSITY
The migrants keep coming. In the year to March, the biggest single source of new migrants was [students from] India, with a net gain in population of 12,112, followed by 8,317 from China and Hong Kong, 4,924 from the UK, 3,951 from the Philippines, 2,841 from France, 2,658 from Germany, 1,495 from South Africa, 1,389 from Samoa, 1,182 from Japan and 1,051 from Fiji. There was a net loss of 2,328 people to Australia in the March year and that is the smallest leakage to Australia in decades.

BUY NOW, PAY [A LOT MORE] LATER
Visitors spent $453 mln on their credit cards in New Zealand in March, up +19% on the same month a year ago. Us locals spent a massive $2.9 bln, up +8.7%. 66.5% of all credit card balances incur interest.

PART-TIME ADVISERS
The Reserve Bank has appointed Tony Caughey and Conor English as part-time external monetary policy advisers. They replace Luke Moriarty and Richard Townsend, who have served for three years. The appointees give advice to the Bank’s Governing Committee leading up to the setting of the Official Cash Rate eight times a year. Caughey is an Auckland company director and strategy consultant. His experience as a chairman, director or senior manager covers firms involved in retail, property, construction, primary industries, export manufacturing, tourism, and legal services. English is chairman of Agribusiness New Zealand, and was CEO of Federated Farmers for six years. He has a farming background, and has also worked in the insurance, oil, property and the finance sectors.

WHOLESALE RATES
Wholesale swap rates gave up their recent gains following the McDermott speech. As rates fell, they steepened. The 90 day bank bill rate was unchanged however at 3.61%.

NZ DOLLAR MIXED
The McDermott speech took 1c off the currency. As of late this afternoon it is at 75.8 USc, 98.1 AUc, 70.9 euro cents, and the TWI is at 81. But in the longer term perspective these falls are minor. Check our real-time charts here.

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

Daily exchange rates

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Daily benchmark rate
Source: RBNZ
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End of day UTC
Source: CoinDesk

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