90 seconds at 9 am with BNZ

90 seconds at 9 am with BNZ: Surprise Australian jobs fall hits A$; China tightens lending rules again to control inflation; Bernard Whimp's offer blocked

13th May 11, 9:03am by Bernard Hickey

Bernard Hickey details the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am in association with Bank of New Zealand, including news that Australia's economy may not be growing as fast as expected.

Australian employment fell 22,100 in April from March. Economists had forecast a 17,000 rise.

The surprisingly weak figure triggered a selloff in the Australian dollar as expectatations of a quick rise in the official cash rate by the Reserve Bank of Australia were tempered.

A later rate hike in Australia makes the Australian dollar relatively less attractive than the New Zealand dollar, which rose to 74.6 Australian cents from 73.8 Aussie cents before the figures came out.

There are fresh concerns about a slowdown in the Australian housing market as interest rate hikes create pain for Australia's indebted households and pressure house prices lower.

Also, there are fears that fresh moves to slow down China's economy could depress demand for commodity exports from Australia and New Zealand.

China announced its 5th tightening of its reserve asset ratio rules for banks so far this year. The ratio has been lifted to a record high 21%, making it more difficult for banks to lend more into an overheated construction market, weakening demand for steel and concrete. Australia's iron ore and coal are key ingredients in that steel production.

China's inflation rate is near 5% and the authorities are working hard to slow the economy.

Meanwhile, the High Court in New Zealand has banned Bernard Whimp from making more 'high ball' offers to small shareholders in listed companies. Whimp wrote to thousands of shareholders with an offered to pay market prices for shares, but the small print revealed he would pay over nine years.

The court ruled the offer, which has already been accepted for NZ$7.2 million of shares, was 'misleading and deceptive'.

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1 Comments

by Gareth Vaughan | 13th May 11, 1:12pm 1305249159

NZ Post confirms plans to close 7 Post/Kiwibank shops. Here's the statement:

New Zealand Post, as widely signalled, is making some changes to its store network as part of ongoing work to ensure we are able to continually provide a commercially viable network of postal and banking services to New Zealanders.

Customer behaviour in New Zealand is becoming more sophisticated and has changed dramatically over the past five years. For instance we know more customers are using the convenience of paying their bills online, and large numbers of people are taking advantage of Kiwibank's award-winning internet banking. The number of Kiwibank customers registered for online banking has doubled in the last five years, approaching half a million.

New Zealanders are also changing where and how they shop. The ongoing migration to malls and large shopping complexes and people shopping near where they work versus near where they live, is strongly influencing where we locate stores.

The onset of convenient technology and changing shopping habits has resulted in the current configuration of the PostShop Kiwibank store network not being reflective of these changes in customer behaviour. As New Zealand Post has clearly indicated through its Annual Report and last month in the media, this situation is not financially sustainable.

The challenge for New Zealand Post is to provide access to the services customers want in ways that enables us to run our business in a sustainable manner. To help achieve this New Zealand Post is investing significantly in technology such as self-service kiosks that will see New Zealanders able to access services in more locations and with greater convenience.

New Zealand Post will at the same time, however, have to close some stores where they are no longer best positioned or where there are other PostShop Kiwibank stores in close proximity. In other areas we will be changing the mix of services being offered - for example the retention of full postal and courier services, but the removal of banking services.

We acknowledge some customers will be impacted by these changes but New Zealand Post continues to provide the largest bank branch network in the country through 280 outlets, and postal services through more than 900 outlets.

It is proposed seven PostShop Kiwibank stores in Auckland (4), Wellington (2) and Dunedin (1) will close. Similarly it is proposed seven stores will change to PostCentres, offering full postal and courier services.

The first of the store changes would be due to begin to be implemented from late June. P.O. Box holders and Kiwibank customers will be contacted directly at least a month before changes occur.