A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Tuesday; July KiwiSaver FHB withdrawals down -15% from a year ago, tractor buying low, bank NIMs fall again, tracking the flu jump, TSB sale challenge rejected, swaps stable, NZD soft, & more

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 
Unity Money raised its 6, 12 and 18 month fixed rates by between +10 bps and +19 bps today. All current mortgage rates are here. And note, you can compare mortgage offers with our unique calculator that takes into account other costs and cashback incentives, here.

TERM DEPOSIT/SAVINGS RATE CHANGES
None here today. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

FHB WITHDRAWAL NUMBERS FALL AWAY FAST
Early KiwiSaver withdrawals for July saw savers taking out $260 mln, with the bulk of that money going towards first home purchases. On average, 4660 FHBs withdrew $46,100 in July, marginally higher than the $46,000 in June, and the $43,200 in July a year ago by 4440 members then. So that is less than a 5% rise in the number of FHB withdrawals. And that is far less than the +15% rise for the twelve months to July, compared to the equivalent 12 months a year earlier. So activity is slowing now.

DOWN BY A QUARTER, PERMANENTLY?
There were 158 new tractors registered in July, exactly the same as in July 2025 and July 2024. The average for the past five years for a July has been 212 tractors registered. Over the past ten years, 220 in a July.

POT KETTLE
The Government has moved to cap council rates increases as 'a brake on excessive increases'. Local Government Minister Simon Watts says government will cap annual council rate increases at +4%. But this is probably just electioneering. After all, this is a government that raised its own spending in the latest budget by +4.5% after pushing spending up by +6.2% in the prior year.

LOWER MARGINS, FULL TAXES PAID
The banking industry reported another fall in their Net Interest Margins (NIM), now at 2.16% and the lowest since March 2022. Overall bank profits improved marginally from March to June, but for the full year, tax paid profits of $7.3 bln were the lowest since the year to March 2022. Taxes on those profits were a bit more than $2.74 bln and this was the lowest annual tax paid since June 2022. (It is worth noting, that unlike fintechs, and payment providers like Visa, Mastercard and tech companies like Apple and Google, our banks actually pay tax here and pretty much at the full 28% rate. Those others all use fast-Eddie strategies to avoid paying taxes in New Zealand. Adopting fintech outside the banks is a net loss to New Zealand.)

NZX50 FIRMER
As at 3pm, the overall NZX50 index was up +0.6% today, and up +0.7% for the past 5 trading sessions. It is up +3.3% from six months ago. From a year ago it is now up +6.8%. Market heavyweight F&P Healthcare is up +1.2% so far today. a2 Milk, SkyCity, Gentrack and Heartland are gaining while Vulcan, Serko, Chorus and Ryman are the larger decliners.

ANOTHER BIG KAURI
The Export-Import Bank of Korea is raising upwards of $750 mln in a 5 year NZD Kauri bond. It was priced at 4.472% pa yield. (A Kauri bond is a debt security denominated in New Zealand dollars and issued in the New Zealand domestic market by a foreign issuer.)

A LINK YOU CAN TRACK
The country is experiencing a severe, late-surging influenza outbreak driven primarily by Influenza A. This item yesterday did not include the link, so here it is, and the charts in the link tell the story.

SWAP RATES FIRMISH
Wholesale swap rates will likely be a little firmer today. Keep an eye on our chart below which will record the final positions closer to 5pm. The 90 day bank bill rate was up +1 bp to 3.01% on Monday. Today, the Australian 10 year bond yield has risen +1 bp to 5.01% from yesterday. The China 10 year bond rate is unchanged at 1.68%. The Japanese 10 year bond is also unchanged at 2.89%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is now at 4.76% and up +1 bp.. (The RBNZ data is now 'prior day' with the Monday rate down -2 bps at 4.73%.) And the UST 10yr yield is now at 4.71%, and unchanged from this time yesterday.

EQUITIES MOSTLY IN A TIGHT RANGE
The NZX50 is up +0.6% from Monday's close and the best of the markets we follow. The ASX200 has opened up +0.4%. Tokyo has opened up +0.1%. The KOSPI has fallen another -2.4% at its open today. Hong Kong has opened down -0.3% and Shanghai is also down -0.3% at its open. Singapore is up +0.2% in early Tuesday trade today. Wall Street ended its Monday trade with the S&P500 down -0.3% while the Nasdaq was down -0.8%.

OIL PRICES LITTLE-CHANGED
American oil prices are little-changed from this time yesterday with the WTI benchmark is still just over US$85.50/bbl, while the international Brent price is now just on US$92.50/bbl and down -50 USc.

CARBON PRICE ON HOLD
We haven't noticed any trades today so the price has held at to $53/NZU. See our daily chart tracker of the NZU price for carbon, courtesy of emsTradepoint.

GOLD DIPS
In early Asian trade, gold is down -US$11/oz from this time yesterday, now at US$4625/oz. Silver is little-changed at just over US$67.50/oz and down -US$1.50/oz.

NZD SOFT
The Kiwi dollar is down -20 bps from this time yesterday, now just on 59.6 USc. Against the Aussie we are down -10 bps at 83.3 AUc. Against the euro we have eased at 51.1 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is now just under 63.1 and down -10 bps from yesterday at this time.

BITCOIN JUMPS
The bitcoin price is now at US$80,637 and up another +4.0% from this morning. Volatility has been moderate at just on +/- 2.7%.

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

Keep abreast of upcoming events by following our Economic Calendar here ».