A review of things you need to know before you go home on Thursday; Kiwibank moves TD 'special', small rise in dairy prices, no credit stress evident, money remittance industry battered, swaps flatten, NZD holds gains

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

TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes today.

TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Kiwibank reduced its 4 month rate, removing its 'special' for that term. They shifted it to a 12 month offer, now 3.45%.

BETTER UP THAN DOWN
Today's dairy auction saw another small gain with overall prices up +3.4% (in both USD and NZD terms). That's five of the past seven auctions recording gains. But they are small gains, not enough to move Fonterra's needle for the payout. That's the 'good news'; the 'bad news' is that the key WMP price actually fell -1.7%.

NEW AUCKLAND HQ FOR HSBC
HSBC NZ is moving its Auckland head office a few metres from 1 Queen Street to 188 Quay Street. The latter is currently the PwC Tower. The bank says it'll move in late 2019 when its current lease ends. HSBC says it has taken on a 10-year lease agreement with Precinct Properties, the owner of 188 Quay Street, for multiple floors. It also gets naming and branding rights for the building. CEO Chris Russell says the move demonstrates HSBC's long-term commitment to NZ.

NO CREDIT STRESS EVIDENT
We monitor bankruptcies and NAPs weekly. These emergency restructuring facilities are being used at levels we saw prior to the GFC. Another was to test consumer credit stress is to look at hardship withdrawals from KiwiSaver. This shows them growing but at a slower pace than membership growth. The rate is really low. (And on that note, KiwiSaver membership has resumed it rising growth track after adjusting for the 'shock' of the withdrawal on the one-time signup bonus.)

PROMPT PAYING THE NORM
Corporate invoice payment times remained steady during Q1 2016 maintaining the average the 35 days we have seen for the previous three quarters. Dun & Bradstreet are reporting that business cash flows remain in excellent shape with the trade payments times holding at low record levels. No indication of credit stress here either.

AUSSIE DATA MIXED
The Australian trade deficit for April came in much better than expected. This latest data suggests that this growing annual deficit is now past its peak and in shrinking again. The April data for retail sales was also out today and that undershot expectations.

AML BATTERS MONEY REMITTANCE INDUSTRY
The screws are tightening on currency exchange services as banks respond to their AML obligations. Kiwibank has won its case against E-Trans. Now, Kiwibank has notified one of its remaining money remittance clients, KlickEx, it intends to close its accounts in 14 days' time. A Court injunction, pending the outcome of the E-Trans case, prevented Kiwibank from closing KlickEx's accounts when it wanted to in April. Asked how the E-Trans case will affect its policy on servicing the money remittance industry in the future, the bank says: "Kiwibank takes a risk based approach as to who it will provide banking services. Money remitters would be assessed on a case by case basis."

NOT POSITIVE
Apart from Hong Kong, most other equity markets in our region are posting losses today, including the NZX50. This is despite small gains posted on Wall Street overnight.

SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO
Our independent monitoring of April and May KiwiSaver returns suggests members may be in for a pleasant surprise when we report Q2 results in mid July.

SWAP RATES FALL AND FLATTEN
Wholesale swap rates fell and flattened today in a noticeable shift in bearish sentiment. The 1-5 curve is back to just 19 bps, the flattest it has been in over a year. The 2-10 is flatter too, but still a few bps from a new benchmark. NZ swap rates are here. The 90-day bank bill rate gave up yesterday's gain, now back -1 bp to 2.42%.

NZ DOLLAR HOLDS ON
The Kiwi dollar holding on to the gains it grabbed yesterday and overnight. Is now at 68.2 USc, at 94.2 AUc, and 60.9 euro cents. The TWI-5 is now at 72.2. Check our real-time charts here.

You can now see an animation of this chart. Click on it, or click here.