What happened Friday

Economy / news

A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Friday; Westpac fined, ASB & POLi team up, KiwiSaver funds dip, Bob Jones dies & more

2nd May 25, 3:51pm by Gareth Vaughan

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
The Wairarapa Building Society is offering a two-year fixed mortgage rate of 4.75%. All rates are here.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
No changes today. All updated term deposit rates less than one-year are here, and for one-to-five-years they are here.

ASB & POLI IN OPEN BANKING PARTNERSHIP
ASB is partnering with online payments provider POLi for open banking based digital payments. ASB says with POLi using ASB’s open banking APIs, customers can use POLi as a payment method without sharing their username and password. Customer authentication and payment authorisation will occur within the ASB mobile banking app. A bank teaming up with POLi is something of a sea-change, with some having previously warned such third-party services invalidate their internet banking guarantee.

WESTPAC NZ FINED FOR MISLEADING CUSTOMERS
The Financial Markets Authority says Westpac NZ will pay a $3.25 million penalty for misleading customers who were entitled to advertised discounts as well as overcharging some of its business customers. A total of 24,621 customers were affected, with overcharges totaling $6.35 million. Westpac had remediated impacted customers.

KIWISAVER FUNDS UNDER MANAGEMENT DIP
KiwiSaver funds under management slipped during the March quarter to $121.2 billion from 121.9 billion at the end of 2024, Morningstar's March quarter KiwiSaver survey shows. Morningstar says average returns for the March quarter ranged significantly between flat for conservative funds and negative 3.7% for aggressive funds.

BOB JONES DIES
Property investor and former politician Bob Jones has reportedly died aged 85.

'TAKE EARLY STEPS TOWARD RECOVERY IF IT IS SAFE TO DO SO'
The Insurance Council of NZ, the lobby group for insurers, is advising people with damage from severe weather in Canterbury and Wellington to contact their insurer as soon as possible, but to also to take steps to reduce further damage and begin recovery if it’s safe to do so.

NZD MOSTLY LOWER
The Kiwi dollar is down against the US dollar, Aussie dollar, Euro and UK pound versus this time Thursday, but stronger against the Yen. At the time of writing it's at US59.26 cents vs US59.47c this time yesterday. It's at A92.47c, 44.58 British pence, 52.47 euro cents, and 86.21 yen.

EQUITIES RISE
The NZX50 is up 1.4% at the time of writing, with the ASX200 up 0.9%. Tokyo is up 0.7% in early trade. Hong Kong is up 1.2%, but Shanghai down 0.2%. Singapore's up 0.1%. On Wall Street, the S&P500 was up 0.6% at the end in Thursday trade.

GOLD RISES
In early Asian trade, gold is up US$8.4 from this time Thursday, at US$3247.4/oz.

OIL UP
The oil price is up US$1.498 day-on-day, at US$59.779/bbl in the US, with the international Brent price US$1.482 higher at US$62.65/bbl.

SWAP RATES
Keep an eye on our chart below which will record the final positions close to 5pm.

Daily exchange rates

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Source: RBNZ

Source: CoinDesk

Daily swap rates

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Source: NZFMA

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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22 Comments

by Foxglove. | 2nd May 25, 6:25pm 1746167133

Adieu Sir Bob. Colourful, contentious and combative. Self enriched courtesy of shrewd property investing, yet always aware of, and a champion of, commonsense as far as what was going on in New Zealand, for better or worse, politically, commercially and generally for all concerned. Unlike others, he was prepared to put his money where his mouth was and it is too often overlooked, that his role in the 1984 election was pivotal to the end of Muldoon’s reign, and the introduction of the dynamic fourth Labour government.

by Let me be Frank | 2nd May 25, 6:24pm 1746167077

Dynamic is one description...chaotic is another.

by kiwikidsnz | 2nd May 25, 6:34pm 1746167672

As I said earlier, like him or loath him NZ will be less colourful without him. And more woke.

by Let me be Frank | 2nd May 25, 6:39pm 1746167997

20+ years ago that may have been the case.

by IT GUY | 2nd May 25, 8:02pm 1746172950

I too would bop anyone interrupting my fly fishing

I wonder what pool it was?

by J.C. | 2nd May 25, 6:41pm 1746168113

As I said earlier, like him or loath him NZ will be less colourful without him. And more woke.

And someone who admired and hired those with the balls to study philosophy over law, accounting, and economics.

Established and financed the Sir Robert Jones Scholarships in Philosophy at Auckland University, aimed at encouraging excellence and increasing opportunities for students to study philosophy. The scholarships are awarded based on academic merit and financial need, specifically for students majoring in philosophy.

Jones publicly differentiated between disciplines, saying, “there's nothing intrinsically meritorious in the classics, history or philosophy et al, but instead that they are ...” He did not see these fields as inherently superior, but valued the intellectual rigor they represent.

by kiwikidsnz | 2nd May 25, 6:57pm 1746169033

He also did a lot of quiet charity work

https://rasnz.co.nz/scholarship/

by Foxglove. | 2nd May 25, 8:17pm 1746173867

Recall a show jumping club wrote to him requesting a donation to enable them to have a new show jumping ring and should he not oblige, perhaps he could then suggest how they might otherwise get one. In response he declined the request as it was in his opinion an elitist type of sport in which the horse actually did all the work and as far as getting a new ring, suggested that they perhaps steal one.

by IT GUY | 2nd May 25, 8:25pm 1746174317

I loved how he used to love writing long articles during once in 100 year floods, which used to happen once every couple of years.....

RIP Rob Jones

by KH | 2nd May 25, 9:35pm 1746178534

Buying his book of "letters" is a great investment. Be careful though you might injure yourself laughing.

by Pa1nter | 2nd May 25, 6:43pm 1746168200

In theory being woke would include a liberal display of rainbows, ergo, more colourful.

by kiwikidsnz | 2nd May 25, 7:47pm 1746172021

In practice it's more like infinite shades of grey

by Pa1nter | 2nd May 25, 7:59pm 1746172769

I remember being young in the 80s. The place was quite a bit more racist, more misogynistic, and more homophobic. Society was more judgemental, and less understanding.

So in many ways, we have come pretty far. Too far? Possibly, but the pendulum swing like the pendulum do.

by Foxglove. | 2nd May 25, 8:09pm 1746173351

Aye, but remember that the only time that the pendulum is neutral, neither one side nor the other, is when it is depowered.

by kiwikidsnz | 2nd May 25, 8:20pm 1746174030

We move in different circles: remember this:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/69481625/carmens-scandalous-…

by Pa1nter | 2nd May 25, 8:25pm 1746174308

No, but then that's kinda showing he'd promote wokeness, if it suited him.

by IT GUY | 2nd May 25, 8:27pm 1746174473

WTF is your definition of wokeness?

by Pa1nter | 2nd May 25, 8:41pm 1746175272

I haven't really been immersed in that culture war enough to have one. Mostly seems to be a battle of conservative values against more liberal ones.

I had an interesting convo with an older trans male a few months back. They're involved in younger people transitioning and are trying to push the idea that people should be doing it for themselves, and not for public consumption.

by J.C. | 2nd May 25, 6:55pm 1746168910

Amazing. In January a whopping 67% of total UK exports to America were gold bars - every physical export to the US (by value) Unprecedented and further evidence of the scale of gold outflows from the UK to the US.

https://x.com/LukeGromen/status/1917603873004364135

by Pa1nter | 2nd May 25, 11:47pm 1746186450

Good summary of the massive disconnect between the value of the stock market vs the actual health of markets and economies

https://youtu.be/hIyQL98mvh0?si=MPxRAUgMkR2Zaa_c

The summation is that markets are being propped up by a steady flow of pension/savings funds. This is sustaining these valuations that aren't in step with reality.

And at the point where more money is requested out of the system than is being contributed, real price discovery will occur.

by Let me be Frank | 3rd May 25, 3:48am 1746200899

Real resources v financial instruments.....or tokens as PDK would describe.

by rolande | 3rd May 25, 5:50am 1746208229

BTC had a pretty good run against US$100k but met some resistance and eventually is sitting around $98k at the moment...