A review of things you need to know before you go home on Wednesday: Rabobank cuts some rates, 'grim' business confidence, banks pull back on consumer loans, swaps down, NZD down, & more

Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes today to report.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Rabobank ended their six month special rate today, reverting to 3.1%. They also trimmed -10 bps from their 3, 4 and 5 year rates. And FEI has raised its one mopnth rate to 5.0%.

'GRIM' BUSINESS CONFIDENCE
Headline business confidence fell 6 points to net -44% in July’s ANZ Business Outlook. Firms’ views of their own activity fell 3 points to +5%, the lowest read since August last year. Other activity indicators were also weaker. The construction sector is doing it tough. The NZD fell on the news.

THINKING GLOBAL, BUYING LOCAL
According to BNZ and Marketview, New Zealand’s total online retail spending in June was +8% higher in June than a year ago. Recent trends have continued. Growth in spending at local online sites was again strong - June was up +14% on a year earlier. In contrast, spending at offshore sites is still growing slowly, with June just +1% higher than June last year.

PUBLIC GOLF OR HOUSING?
Wellington's public golf courses face threats from housing pressures. This debate echos similar long-run considerations in Auckland.

AU INFLATION RISES, ABOVE EXPECTATIONS, JUST
Aussie CPI for the June quarter was expected to increase by +1.5% and a rise from the first quarter when it was +1.3%. It has come in slightly higher than expected at +1.6%.

NO SIGNS OF NEW PRESSURES
China's official PMI's for July show that the contraction eased in their factories. But their services sector, which is still expanding at a healthy rate, slowed slightly in July. These surveys are biased toward the very large enterprises in China, many of them State Owned Enterprises. A survey of mid-sized and mainly private firms is due soon. (But note that for the prior June results, the private secyor survey was more positive than the official one.)

UPDATING ONLINE GAMBLING RULES
International online gambling sites continue to eat away at the Governments monopoly control of the sector here. Last year those unregulated options attracted $380 mln of Kiwi wagers, and made zero contribution to mitigating gambling harm here. The Government today signaled that it wants to adopt control systems more like the ones that operate in the UK and Australia.

CONSUMER DEBT SHIFTS
Housing debt is still growing at +6.2% pa, a rate that we have seen monthly now for more than a year. But consumers are shying away from adding more personal non-housing debt. This is advancing very slowly now, up just +1.2% in the year to June. That is its slowest growth pace since August 2013. Growth in credit card debt is tailing off but is still higher than overall consumer debt. The real fall away is for personal loans. Overall, this type of debt grew less than +1% year-on-year in June. For non-bank finance companies there is still growth; it is personal finance lending by banks that is taking the hit. June is the third month in a row where banks have suffered a year-on-year fall and that hasn't happened previously since 2009. But given that banks are retreating and finance companies are still expanding, you do have to wonder if banks aren't deliberately tightening credit standards and shifting risk to the non-banks.

HOUSEHOLD BANK DEPOSIT GROWTH SLOWS
Household deposit growth at banks is now slowing and slowing quite quickly. In June it was up +5.4% from the same month a year ago. But this is the second slowest rate of annual growth since November 2010, almost nine years ago. Deposit growth from non-household sectors remains healthy however; business deposits are up +7.2% on the same basis.

"A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE"
A group of large intermediate power companies that includes Horizon Networks, Federated Farmers, Northpower, Norske Skog Tasman, Oji Fibre Solutions, Top Energy Group, Trustpower, Counties Power, Entrust and Vector are all warning that the Electricy Authoritiy's latest tweaking of electricity transmission costs will hurt consumers in the north of the North Island.

SWAP RATES STOP FALLING
Wholesale swap rates are down another -1 bp today across the curve. The 90-day bank bill rate has also slipped -1 bp to 1.49%. Australian swap rates are also a little softer today, although not by much. The Aussie Govt 10yr is stable today if a bit softer at 1.20%. The China Govt 10yr is -2 bps lower at 3.19%, while the NZ Govt 10 yr also -2 bps lower 1.47%. The UST 10yr yield is now at 2.06%, and down -1 bp since this morning.

NZ DOLLAR LOWER
The Kiwi dollar fell on the business confidence data and is now just on 65.9 USc. Against the Aussie we are down to 95.7 AU cents after their CPI report. Against the euro we are soft at 59.1 euro cents. That has pushed the TWI-5 down to under 71.3.

BITCOIN FIRMS
Bitcoin is now at US$9,674 and up +2.5% from this time yesterday. Volatility has been a relatively low +/- 1.8%. The bitcoin price is charted in the currency set below.

This chart is animated here.