A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Friday; 3-party govt detailed, retail sales soft, economy slowing on a per capital basis, Aussie banks push ahead of NZ banks in scam fight, auditors improving, NZD steady

Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today, or if you're working from home, before you shutdown your laptop.

MORTGAGE/LOAN RATE CHANGES
Westpac NZ made small increases to its six month, one year and 18 month mortgage rates, and small cuts to its two, three, four and five year rates, Details here.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
The Police Credit Union increased its six month term deposit rate by 10 basis points to 5.75%, and lifted its 12 month rate, also by 10 basis points, to 5.85%. Westpac NZ increased its one year term deposit rate 10 basis points to 6.10%.

PETERS & SEYMOUR TO JOB SHARE DEPUTY PM
Details of the new three party coalition government are out, with NZ First's Winston Peters and ACT's David Seymour to take turns as Deputy Prime Minister. Gone is National's proposed foreign house buyer tax, which would've seen a ban on overseas house buyers overturned with the tax on purchases above $2 million helping to fund tax cuts elsewhere. See more on the new government here and here.

RETAIL SALES SOFT
Falls in hardware and vehicle retailing led a 3.4% drop in total retail sales volumes in the September quarter, year-on-year, Statistics NZ says. Thirteen of 15 retail industries had lower total retail sales volumes. Westpac NZ economists note that over the last year, nominal spending levels have risen 1.1%, while prices rose 4.6%, and the population increased by more than 2%. "Putting that all together leaves us with a soft picture of underlying spending appetites," Westpac says.

AN ECONOMY SLOWING IN PER CAPITA TERMS?
ANZ NZ says its Light Traffic Index - covering motorbikes, cars and vans - fell 1.5% month-on-month, and its Heavy Traffic Index - mostly trucks - rose 0.6% in its October Truckometer. The bank's economists say light traffic is generally a good indicator of demand, and in particular consumers’ willingness to spend, as opposed to production. Heavy traffic data tends to provide a good steer on production GDP. ANZ says with the trend in heavy traffic fairly flat despite strong population growth, this is consistent with an economy that's slowing in per capita terms.

AUSSIE BANKS PUSH FORWARD WITH CONFIRMATION OF PAYEE SYSTEM TO FIGHT SCAMS
The Australian Banking Association (ABA), whose members include the parents of NZ's big four banks, has unveiled a "Scam-Safe Accord" involving A$100 million investment in a confirmation of payee system to be rolled out across all Australian banks. The ABA says this will help reduce scams by ensuring people can confirm they are transferring money to the person they intend to. NZ banks say we'll hear more about their plans to combat scams in mid-December.

FMA SAYS AUDIT QUALITY IMPROVING, URGES HIGH ETHICAL STANDARDS
In its latest audit quality monitoring report the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) says quality is improving, with the percentage of non-compliant audit files decreasing to 16% in 2022/23 from 28% in 2021/22. The FMA says it didn't observe any breaches of ethical standards during the review, but reiterated expectations of audit firms following recent events overseas. "Conduct such as the exam cheating by various big four firms in many jurisdictions and the confidentiality breaches by PwC Australia raise questions about ethical behaviour across the audit profession," the FMA says. "We expect audit firms to proactively maintain a culture that enables staff at all levels to speak out on ethical issues and know such concerns will be treated seriously. Audit quality is built on independence and ethics, and those critical foundations must be maintained."

MTF FINANCE'S 'STELLAR YEAR'
MTF Finance says its September-year net profit after tax rose 38% to $11.6 million, as lending rose 40% to $846 million from $607 million. The company described it as a "stellar year."

JAPANESE INFLATION HOLDS ABOVE CENTRAL BANK'S TARGET
Japan's core consumer price index (CPI), which excludes fresh food costs, rose 2.9% in October, year-on-year, versus economists' expectations for a 3.0% rise. Japan's core inflation was 2.8% in September and has been above the Bank of Japan's 2% inflation target for 19 consecutive months.

NZ DOLLAR STEADY
The NZ dollar has weakened slightly against the greenback during the day, sitting at US60.50 cents at the time of writing, versus US60.7c this morning, and it's steady against the Aussie dollar at AU92.25c.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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