A review of things you need to know before you go home Monday; some rate changes, FMA tackles CFD risk, house listing surge, surprise fall in Aussie retail, swaps and NZD unchanged - except AUD falls

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Kiwibank has raised its 1 year fixed mortgage rate by +10 bps to 4.69%. AMP Home Loans has made the same change (but not NZHL yet).

DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
NZCU South has raised its three year TD offer to 4.20%. BNZ has cut both its BusinessFirst call and its FarmFirst call rate by -10 bps to 0.25%.

MISUNDERSTOOD RISK
The FMA is moving to tighten oversight of short-term derivative products such as binary options and contracts-for-difference (CFDs). 42% of all complaints the FMA receives are from such products.

MARCH BRINGS SURGE IN HOMES LISTED
Residential property becoming a buyer's market as rush of new listings and rising stock of properties for sale give buyers more choice. The national weeks of inventory is now 16.6 weeks. In Auckland it is up to 19 weeks its highest level since 2012, in Hamilton it is stable at 14.6 weeks, in Tauranga it is now at 16.2 weeks, in Wellington its stable at 9 weeks, in Christchurch it is 18.6 weeks, and in Dunedin it is just 10.6 weeks of inventory at the current sales rate.

OUT OF FASHION?
In a surprise result, Australian retail turnover fell -0.1% in February from January in seasonally adjusted terms. Analysts were expecting a rise of +0.3% so the miss is quite marked. Their currency fell on the news. The biggest tumble was in clothing, falling -2.9%, and footwear and personal accessories, down -1.9%. Trading in household goods fell -0.4%. Within that group, furniture and houseware dried up the most, with sales declining -2.5%. Year-on-year in actual terms, sales were down -0.5%.

RESPONSIBLE LENDING?
And staying in Australia, their regulator ASIC is clamping down on how interest-only mortgage lending is sold. They are claiming there is evidence borrowers are being up-sold into these higher rate products.

WHOLESALE RATES UNCHANGED
Wholesale swap rates are essentially unchanged today, although both the one year and ten year rates have slipped by -1 bp. The 90 day bank bill is also unchanged at 2.00%.

NZ DOLLAR UNCHANGED
The NZD is also unchanged from this morning at 70.1 USC. On the cross rates, against the AUD and EUR we now trade at 92.1 AUc and 65.6 euro cents respectively. For the TWI-5 we are still at 75.2.

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