A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Friday; no retail rates changes; passport backlog eases, deprecation changes hit companies with buildings, swaps and NZD little-changed, & more

Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today (or if you already work from home, before you shutdown your laptop).

MORTGAGE/LOAN RATE CHANGES
There are no changes to report todays. All rates are here.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
No changes here either. All rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

DEPOSITOR COMPENSATION SCHEME FUNDING STRATEGY PUBLISHED
Treasury has published the inaugural funding strategy for the incoming Depositor Compensation Scheme (DCS), which is scheduled to be implemented from mid-2025. The funding strategy, or Statement of Funding Approach (SoFA), provides estimates of the costs of the DCS over the next five years and sets out the strategy for funding these costs and liabilities. The SoFA sets a target fund size of 0.8% of protected deposits, which will be built over 20 years and funded by levies paid by deposit takers which are being developed by the Reserve Bank. The DCS will protect each eligible depositor up to $100,000 per licensed deposit taker in the event of failures.

PROGRESS REDUCING THE PASSPORT BACKLOG
Now more than 90% of passport applications are via the online process. And the new Passport Office system is now working much better. The passport application queue has reduced from 53,847 at the beginning of May, to 35,290 today (July 5). That is a reduction of -34% in five weeks. In June, they issued 43,488 passports - almost 6,000 more passports than applications it received.

DEPRECIATION CHANGE HIT
The Coalition's tax changes eliminating depreciation on buildings that have a 50 year life or more are cascading through company results. For many the changes will impact the accounting value of deferred tax and also the reported earnings for the current year. It is long overdue change. The value of buildings don't really depreciate if they are maintained, and the maintenance cost is deductible. (If anything, they appreciate, and any real estate professional will attest. Land on the other had, is where there is more volatility.)

SOME FINCOs REPORT RESULTS
A couple of finance companies released their financial results recently. Finance Direct reported a -$786,000 loss, in part due to its closure of the related Lending Crowd business. A feature of their changing business however has been positive cash flows (+$640,000). Xceda Finance reported a profit of $1.2 mln, and very strong positive cash flows.

WESTPAC NZ CHIEF RISK OFFICER LEAVING
Westpac NZ says its Chief Risk Officer, Dirk McLiesh, is leaving the bank at the end of 2024. He joined the bank in August 2022.

US ON HOLIDAY
Global financial markets are very quiet today, emphasising just how dominant Wall Street is to their normal functioning.

SWAP RATES NOT DOING MUCH
Wholesale swap rates are likely to be little-changed again today. Our chart below will record the final positions. The 90 day bank bill rate is unchanged at 5.61%, a level it has hovered around for 120 days now. The Australian 10 year bond yield is up +1 bp from this time yesterday at 4.47%. The China 10 year bond rate is down -2 at 2.23%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is up +1 bp at 4.79% and the earlier RBNZ fix was at 4.73% and up +4 bps from yesterday. The UST 10yr yield is unchanged from yesterday at 4.37%. Their 2yr is still at 4.71%, so the curve is still at -34 bps.

EQUITIES MOSTLY NEGATIVE
The NZX50 is down -0.3% in late trade. And the ASX200 is down -0.2% in afternoon trade. Tokyo is up +0.3% at its open and pushing new all-time highs. Hong Kong is down -0.7%, and Shanghai is down a full -1.0% to open their day's trading. Singapore is down -0.4%. The S&P500 isn't trading because it is a holiday on Wall Street.

OIL FIRM
The oil price is up +50 USc at US$83/bbl in the US, and at US$87/bbl for the international Brent price.

GOLD FIRM
In early Asian trade, gold is a little firmer since this time yesterday, up +US$4 at US$2362/oz.

NZD HOLDS
The Kiwi dollar is holding from this time yesterday, now at 61.2 USc. Against the Aussie we are marginally softer at 90.9 AUc. Against the euro we still at 56.6 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is little-changed at 70.4.

BITCOIN FALLS FURTHER
The bitcoin price has fallen another -3.8% from this time yesterday, now at US$56,737. That is down -6.5% in a week. Volatility of the past 24 hours has been moderate at just over +/- 2.2%.

GO THE ALL BLACKS!

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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