A review of things you need to know before you go home on Monday; more floating rate hikes, some TD rises, housing consents stall, Apple tells Aussie banks where to go, swap rates stable, NZD drops

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
ANZ has followed BNZ, ASB and Westpac by raising its floating mortgage rate by +10 bps. Kiwibank has also raised both its floating and revolving credit rates today by +15.bps. Their floating rate becomes 5.55% and their revolving credit rate becomes 5.60%. Even at these new levels Kiwibank has a strong rate advantage over their main rivals.

DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
ANZ has also raised its 3 month, 8 month, 18 month and 2 year term deposit rates by either +10 bps or +15 bps. Kiwibank has also raised a range of term deposit rates today, mainly for terms of 2 years and longer. NZCU South raise its term deposit rates too, for 12, 18 and 24 month terms.

FULLERTON MARKETS EYES INDONESIA
Fullerton Markets, the NZ registered but unregulated financial service provider, wants to trade Indonesian crude palm oil, according to the Jakarta Globe. Fullerton, which enticed then-Finance Minister Bill English to its launch last year and sponsors the Hurricanes and Wellington Phoenix, already offers trading in foreign exchange, the derivatives product CFDs and gold and silver, according to its website. The Jakarta Globe also reported that Fullerton has 10,000 clients and wants more in Indonesia.

SIMPLICITY EXPANDS
KiwiSaver provider Simplicity is expanding into the investment funds sector. The firm says it's offering funds that operate outside the KiwiSaver plan with fees up to 75% below the industry norm. Simplicity Investments Funds will be managed the same way as its KiwiSaver plan but investors will be able to withdraw their money at any time.

RBNZ SPEECH ON BANK CAPITAL
Reserve Bank Deputy Governor Grant Spencer will make a speech on Tuesday titled 'Review of bank capital requirements'. The speech will be available from 11am.

REGIONAL STALL?
Housing construction momentum has stalled on a national basis. Statistics New Zealand says the trend line for the number of new homes being consented has declined by -15% in the past five months. However, while the January numbers are +3.4% higher than the same month a year ago, they were disappointingly flat in Auckland (+1.2%) and down sharply in the Waikato (-22%), the Bay of Plenty (-15%), the Hawkes Bay (-12%) and the Tasman/Nelson area (-30%). But let's not make too much of these latest numbers; they are for January after all, the second lowest month of the year.

WHERE ARE THE PUBLIC JOBS?
Consents for buildings other than housing are showing vulnerable signs too. Infomectrics reports that the value of non-residential building consents in January was up +9.2% from January 2016. But consents from the public sector contributed very little to this result, beginning the year with consents at their lowest monthly level in nine years.

'EFF OFF AUSSIE BANKS', SAYS APPLE
Apple has told a collection of Australian banks and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) it'll never give the banks access to the Near Field Communications (NFC) technology in Apple's smartphones. ASB's parent Commonwealth Bank of Australia, BNZ's parent National Australia Bank, Westpac and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, have asked the ACCC to authorise them to enter "limited collective negotiations" with Apple for access to iPhones and Apple Pay. "Apple will never enter into collective negotiations with the applicant banks to provide direct access by a bank's proprietary issuer digital wallet to the embedded NFC controller because doing so would undermine the simplicity and ease of use as well as the security that consumers expect when using Apple products, not just in Australia, but globally. This has always been Apple's position both publicly and with any bank in the world that has requested that. There has not been, because there cannot be, any evidence presented that would suggest that Apple is going to redesign its products to allow for a less secure and worse customers experience in order to appease a collection of banks in one country," Apple says. Apple has urged the ACCC to confirm its draft determination from last November that rejected the banks' request for collective negotiations and a collective boycott. The banks involved represent 70% of Australian cardholders. ANZ broke ranks last year and offers Apple Pay to Visa customers on both sides of the Tasman.

CARS, CARS, CARS
The number of used imports first registered in February 2017 was a high 12,260. This was a twelve year high for a February. And it takes the annual sales rate to 151,308, a ten year high. This data follows the record new car data out late last week. We are at such a high level, it won't be possible to continue with this momentum.

LIFESTYLE SHIFTS
Australian retail sales data for January probably disappointed most businesses in that sector. It was up +2.2% but that is the slowest year-on-year growth for any month in the past three. However retailers selling clothing, or eat-out meals are smiling; both these sectors posted growth more than double the overall average.

PUTTING US IN OUR [ECONOMIC] PLACE
New Zealand has a population of 4.7 mln people. NWS has a population of 7.7 mln with more than half in Sydney (4.3 mln). But the state has a GDP of NZ$540 mln, far ahead of our NZ$243 mln in the same 2014-15 year, the latest comparative period. Per capita, that is NZ$70,000 in NSW and NZ$51,000 in New Zealand. We have a lot of catching up to do. Still, NSW would be in the top 40 worldwide if it were independent.

WHOLESALE RATES MODESTLY HIGHER
New Zealand wholesale swap have seen a modest rise today, despite the kick ahead Janet Yellen gave to the US bond markets with a strong signal US rates will rise in March. However we have only seen a +1 bp rise for two years and a +2 bps raise for terms of five and ten years here today. The 90 day bank bill rate has actually slipped -1 bp to 1.99%.

NZ DOLLAR DOWN SHARPLY
The NZD has held its weekend rate today, although with the sense of softness that dragged it down late last week and is now at 70.3 USc. On the cross rates we are at 92.7 AUc, and at 66.2 euro cents. The TWI-5 index is now at 75.9 and the first time we have been below 76 all year. Check our real-time charts here or see below.

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