What happened Monday

Economy / news

A review of things you need to know before you sign off on Monday; some TDs move up, Fonterra raises it payout forecast, CRL popular, FMA warns TSB, credit card activity tame, Kiwibank fundraising, swaps firmish, NZX up, & more

21st Sep 26, 4:05pm by David Chaston

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
No changes to report 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
Rabobank has raised its 6 month and one year TD rates, which takes its new one year 4.15% rate to a market-leading level for this term. Heartland Bank also raised some rates but not to the Rabobank levels. Details here. All updated term deposit rates less than 1 year are here, for 1-5 years, they are here.

HIGHER NEW SEASON PAYOUT
Fonterra has narrowed its new season payout forecast range which raised the midpoint to $9.50/kgMS on 'recent improvements' in dairy prices.

MORE REINSURANCE, LOWER UNIT COST
General insurer Tower said it had lifted its reinsurance cover by $55 mln to $970 mln, and anticipates reinsurance premium expense will come down to 9.5% of Gross Written Premium in its 2027 financial year from 10.6% currently.

BACK TO THE FUTURE
Auckland’s rail network has recorded its busiest week ever in the first seven days of CRL services. A total of 528,007 train boardings were recorded between Sunday, September 13, and Saturday, September 19, beating the previous seven-day record of 504,380 set in pre-pandemic March 2019 by more than 23,000. So after spending $5.4 bln, patronage is back to levels it was seven years ago. The week before the CRL opened, Auckland’s rail network recorded 325,203 boardings. One week later, patronage was up by more than +60%. By the end of opening day, 56,757 train boardings had been recorded. Momentum continued to build throughout the week, peaking at 85,289 boardings on Thursday. The real test is how much easier it is to drive in peak hours. There are 900,000 registered vehicles in Auckland and many are involved in commute and work-related activities.

FMA WARNS TSB
The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) has issued a warning about TSB Bank's conduct after it charged fees on business cheque transactions that weren’t subject to fees according to its own terms and conditions. Between 30 November 2017 and 20 November 2023, TSB charged a $0.25 fee on some business cheque transactions that shouldn’t have attracted the fee. The error affected 7,309 customer accounts. TSB has paid back a total of $1.73 mln, which covers the fees, related interest and charges, and compensation for the use of that money over time. TSB changed the wording of its Business Cheque terms and conditions in November 2017. The change was meant to make the fees clearer, but it left out some transactions that the bank’s systems kept charging for. So what customers were told they would be charged and what they were actually charged didn’t match for an extended period.

WE'VE STILL GOT OUR CREDIT CARDS ON LOW VELOCITY
Domestic billings on locally issued cards were $4.0 bln in July, up +0.9% from June-26, and up +3.2% from July last year, so rising less than the 4.1% inflation in that period. Travelers in New Zealand are providing the impetus. Billings here on overseas issued cards increased +18.5% from last month to $521.9 mln in July. Annually, billings on overseas issued cards were up +20.7%.

NZX50 GAINS
As at 3pm, the overall NZX50 index is up +0.4% today so far. But for the past 5 trading sessions it is up +1.7%. It is up +6.9% from six months ago. From a year ago it is now up +4.9%. Market heavyweight F&P Healthcare is up +0.8% so far today. Vulcan Steel, Oceania, a2 Milk and Skellerup rise while Serko, Port of Tauranga, Vista Group and Fletcher retreat.

MORE WHOLESALE FUNDRAISING
Kiwibank says it is in the bond market looking for 5 year funding of at least $100 mln (plus oversubscriptions) and they are willing to pay swap plus 75 bps margin. (For reference, the last bank to have a similar offer was BNZ in early September who sought the same $100 mln plus oversubscriptions. They ended up taking $1.25 bln at a margin of 68 bps.)

TREND REVERSAL
In the Feb/Mar/April quarter, NZGB bond trading transaction level averaged about $80 bln per week in this period on secondary markets. But they have fallen since, now averaging just $70 bln over the past four week in a noticeable step lower. In the same period last year they averaged $55 bln per week but that wasn't a change from the upward track that started in Q3-2024. That rising trend seems to have ended in Q1-2026. We are now tracking lower.

SWAPS HOLD
Wholesale swap rates will likely be little-changed to firmer today. Keep an eye on our chart below which will record the final positions closer to 5pm. The RBNZ 90 day rate was up +1 bp at 3.16% on Friday. Today, the Australian 10 year bond yield has risen +2 bps to 5.29%. The China 10 year bond rate is little-changed again at 1.68%. The Japanese 10 year bond is still at 2.98%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is now at 4.99% and up 2 bps from Friday. (The RBNZ 10 year rate is 'prior day' and was also down -5 bps to 4.95% on Friday.) And the UST 10yr yield is now at 4.97%, and down -3 bps from this morning.

EQUITIES FIRMER
The NZX50 is now up +0.4% from Friday's close. The ASX200 has opened down -0.1%. Tokyo is closed for a holiday today. The KOSPI has risen +1.6% at its open today. Hong Kong has opened up +0.4% while Shanghai is up +0.5% at its open. Singapore is up +0.3% in early Monday trade today. Wall Street futures suggest the S&P500 will open overnight strongly, up +1.2%.

OIL PRICES EASE LOWER
American oil prices are down -US$2 from this morning with the WTI benchmark now at just over US$98/bbl, while the international Brent price is just under US$102/bbl and also down -US$2.

CARBON PRICE HOLDS
There have been few reported trades again today. The price has held at $52/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$22/oz from this morning's open, now at US$4361/oz. Silver is up +50 USc at US$66.50/oz.

NZD LITTLE-CHANGED WITH A HINT OF SOFTNESS
The Kiwi dollar is little-change from this morning, still at 57.2 USc. Against the Aussie we are holding at 80.3 AUc. Against the euro we still at just over 49.8 euro cents. This all means the TWI-5 is remains just over 60.6 and land dipping a bit less than -10 bps from this morning.

BITCOIN FIRMER
The bitcoin price is now at US$81,269 and up +1.2% from this morning. Volatility has been modest at just on +/- 1.0%.

HOW THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC FORCES AFFECT US
If you want to catch up on what happened last night, try our Economy Watch podcast, here.

Daily exchange rates

Select chart tabs

Source: RBNZ

Source: CoinDesk

Daily swap rates

Select chart tabs

Source: NZFMA

This soil moisture chart is animated here.

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

We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment

Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.

13 Comments

by VancouverKiwi | 21st Sep 26, 4:14pm 1789964053

TSB self-reported the issue in December 2024 to the FMA. It has taken 21 months to issue a warning - what have they been doing?

by Palmtree08 | 21st Sep 26, 4:39pm 1789965572

"Domestic billings on locally issued cards were $4.0 bln in July, up +0.9% from June-26"

Great to see the blood sucking parasite that is the credit card industry finding a new vein.

by Phoenix (FKA JC) | 21st Sep 26, 5:40pm 1789969250

Quoth the Raven (via Zerohedge - I know, the water cooler crew tells me ZH is for cookers, cranks, and conspiracy theorists) goes through the idea of retiring $40 trillion in U.S. govt debt using cash from the Treasury General Account.

That would require re-marking gold reserves to approx USD155,000 per ounce.

Changing the official price of an ounce of gold from $42 to $155,000 doesn’t give America more factories, houses, data centers, oil, electricity, farmland or productive capacity. We still have the same economy and the same 261.5 million ounces of gold. We’ve simply assigned an enormously larger number of dollars to that gold and, under this hypothetical framework, allowed Treasury to monetize that higher valuation.

If Treasury then started using that money to retire government debt, the Treasury securities could disappear, but the people and institutions holding them don’t disappear. They get paid. In effect, Washington would be replacing enormous quantities of interest bearing Treasury securities with money and other monetary liabilities in the financial system.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/gold-155000-ounce

by IT GUY | 21st Sep 26, 6:12pm 1789971155

I saw that and wanted it to personally post it here, but did not want to be associated with the good people at ZH.

Even though they are very good at picking up things early, like the gain of function at Wuhan institute etc and links to the Ftard Fauci they are also full of crap, i read it for the diamonds in the rough and AI images, but I only read the articles.

Look there are 100 ways gold could and will go up , inflation being the tide you ride and dickheads using their holdings over countries that have none being a bonus, NZ should forget about nationalizing the super markets and nationalize the gold miners, keep mining and build a NZ gold reserve FFS.

by Palmtree08 | 21st Sep 26, 6:35pm 1789972539

The "reserves" are best left in the ground where they can remain "reserves".

by IT GUY | 21st Sep 26, 7:20pm 1789975223

they are harder to steal that way

by Phoenix (FKA JC) | 21st Sep 26, 6:44pm 1789973079

You really need to be a subscriber to get full value from ZH. The comments can be wild, enlightening, and incredibly funny. I remember reading a fictional story on there about a day in the life of Jeffrey Epstein in his new estate in Eilat, Israel.

by IT GUY | 21st Sep 26, 6:59pm 1789973989

For the oldies

I am Chumbawamba

by KKNZ2025 | 21st Sep 26, 6:31pm 1789972312

From the link:

"In other words, the crazy number may tell you as much about the dollar as it does about the gold" Exactly.

of course the usa has fixed the gold price before, from 1834 for 100yrs @$20.67 plus 38yrs @$35. And in 1933, Executive Order 6102 had made it a criminal offense for U.S. citizens to own or trade gold anywhere in the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Reserve_Act

by Colin Maxwell | 21st Sep 26, 7:09pm 1789974582

Exactly, Phoenix — but I think there is an even bigger problem with this idea.

Revaluing gold to $155,000, or any amount even approaching that figure an ounce, would amount to financial and geopolitical suicide for the United States.

The entire calculation assumes that America's claimed gold reserves are actually sitting there as allocated, unencumbered physical metal available to underpin such a revaluation.

I seriously doubt that assumption. After decades of leasing, swaps, multiple claims, rehypothecation and an extraordinarily opaque bullion system, the number that really matters isn't America's headline gold reserve, it is how much unencumbered physical gold America could actually deliver when the RoW demands their metal back.

Meanwhile, my research suggests that China alone may control something around 33% of physical gold - sovereign, institutional and privately held - out of an estimated ~222,000 tonnes of above-ground gold globally. So think about the strategic absurdity of Washington suddenly declaring gold to be worth a huge figure an ounce.

It wouldn't merely revalue whatever physical gold America actually owns - it would revalue China's and Russia's enormous physical holdings by exactly the same factor.

These are precisely the countries in the BRIC+ centric bloc that are building alternatives to the dollar financial architecture and increasing the role of gold, precious metals and other durable commodities in their reserves and international settlement arrangements.

Washington could therefore attempt to extinguish its debt problem with an accounting trick, only to simultaneously advertise to the world that the dollar has been catastrophically devalued against gold while handing an enormous balance-sheet windfall to its principal geopolitical competitors.

It appears to me that it would be difficult to devise a better way of accelerating the monetary transition Washington is desperately trying to prevent.

by Phoenix (FKA JC) | 21st Sep 26, 7:16pm 1789974996

Not sure if it's relevant. The U.S.' gold reserves aren't necessarily relevant to the market price or China's gold reserves. Suspect it would have a positive impact on market value, but to what extent I don't know.

by Colin Maxwell | 21st Sep 26, 8:29pm 1789979388

But Phoenix, isn't that precisely why it is so relevant.

If we're merely discussing the everyday market price of gold, then America's gold reserves are obviously not what determines that price - but that isn't the proposition under discussion.

The whole point of this extraordinary $155,000/oz revaluation idea is supposedly to use America's gold asset to radically improve the US sovereign balance sheet. In that case, how much physical gold America actually owns, and how much everyone else owns, becomes absolutely central to the calculation.

You can't revalue American gold to $155,000 an ounce while leaving Chinese, Russian, Indian and everybody else's physical gold at today's valuation - gold is fungible.

If the US successfully established a credible monetary architecture under which an ounce of physical gold was effectively worth $155,000, then everybody holding physical gold receives essentially the same revaluation - which brings us straight back to my point.

Before attempting something like this, Washington would need to know two rather important things...

#1 How much unencumbered physical gold does America actually control?

#2 Who owns the rest of the global supply.

If America's competitors have accumulated enormous physical stocks while America has spent decades operating through an opaque system of leasing, swaps and paper claims, then the distribution of physical gold isn't some irrelevant footnote - it is the most important part of the entire exercise.

Otherwise Washington could discover that its ingenious plan for recapitalising itself simultaneously recapitalises the very monetary blocs attempting to reduce their dependence on the dollar - that would just another debacle in a very long string of home goals.

by Phoenix (FKA JC) | 21st Sep 26, 5:48pm 1789969724

Things starting to get interesting at the degenerate end of crypto since the Dems stalled the CLARITY Act. Elizabeth Warren said "Why are we putting provisions in place to blow up protections on the stock market because a handful of crypto bros want it?”
She goes on to say that Americans want Congress to regulate AI and tackle affordability, arguing crypto is NOT their priority. I think she's bluffing and their priority is going after the Orange Swan.

Anyway, in the past 7 days, we see

Synapse: +175%

Near Protocol: 78%

Ethena: +52%