A review of things you need to know before you go home Thursday; The costly stormy tempest, ANZ's responsible investing, open season on farmers? swap rates rise, NZD falls

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes to borrowing rates today.

DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
No changes to deposit rates today.

BNZ SEES HIGHER LENDING COSTS
BNZ's predicting higher lending costs for customers as it sees its net interest margin shrinking as lending growth continues to exceed deposit growth across the banking system.

ANZ FUND TARGETS RESPONSIBLE INVESTING
ANZ Investments has established a new international equities fund in NZ based on responsible investing - meaning no investments in controversial weapons and tobacco. The ANZ Default KiwiSaver Scheme Conservative Fund has invested in the new fund, meaning that all ANZ’s KiwiSaver schemes exclude any direct and indirect investment in companies involved in controversial weapons or tobacco. The fund is open to wholesale investors and to other funds.

CABINET AGREES NEW 'PLUMBING' RULES FOR FINANCIAL SYSTEM
Cabinet has agreed to a new legislative framework that will improve regulation of payment systems and other Financial Market Infrastructures (FMIs). The new framework comes after a detailed review by the Reserve Bank of FMI regulation. The review included three public consultations in the last four years. FMIs provide the “plumbing” of the financial system. They provide trading, clearing, settlement and reporting services for financial transactions involving payments, securities, derivatives, and other financial products.

A $42 MLN STORMY TEMPEST
The so-called 'Tasman Tempest' that hit Auckland and the Coromandel over 7 to 12 March 2017, packing a month's worth of rain into 24 hours, has resulted in insured costs of $41.7m the Insurance Council of New Zealand reports. Provisional shows 5,800 house and contents claims costing $24.5 million, 760 commercial material damage and business interruption losses at $13.4 million and 315 motor vehicle claims costing $2.8 million.

GOVERNMENT TRUMPETS APPRENTICE NUMBERS
Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Paul Goldsmith and Associate Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Louise Upston have welcomed the latest apprenticeship figures, which show an increase of 6800, nearly 19%, since 2012.

SAILING ALONG
The headline ANZ Commodity Price Index dipped 0.2% in April, but the underlying detail for New Zealand’s main commodities remained robust, ANZ says. The headline index was driven lower by dairy (-2.5% m/m), while the non-dairy component rose 1.2% m/m. Continued weakness in the NZ dollar also added to local exporter returns, with local prices up 0.5% m/m and 20.4% y/y. The NZD index is now at its highest level since 2013/14 when milk powder prices were at record highs.

THE ART OF 'DECUMULATION'
The New Zealand Society of Actuaries has issued guidance in the form of simple Rules of Thumb to assist New Zealanders to ‘decumulate’ – to decide how much of their retirement savings to spend each year. The Society’s Retirement Income Interest Group tested several possible rules for a typical retiree in New Zealand, modelling future investment returns and life expectancies in New Zealand’s unique retirement environment and has proposed a set of four Rules of Thumb.

'STOP THE OPEN SEASON ON FARMERS'
Ahead of the opening day of the duck shooting season on Saturday, Federated Farmers board member Chris Allen has penned an open letter to fish and game hunters expecting to be able to access farmers' land that they "might not face the same friendly welcome" this year after some moves by Fish and Game on water quality.  "Many farmers are over the constant claims that New Zealand has terrible water quality and farmers are largely at fault when in fact 80% of New Zealand’s waterways are stable or improving and all communities - across rural and urban - are part of the problem and therefore need to be part of the solution," Allen says. He's asking for Fish and Game licence holders to work with, not against, the farming community.

WHOLESALE RATES EDGE HIGHER
Following the US Fed policy rate review, which left rates unchange but maintained a bias toward future rises, wholesale swap rates moved up, largely reversing the falls of yesterday. Rates for two years are up 1 bp, for five years down 3 bps and for ten years are up 4 bps. The 90 day bank bill is unchanged at 1.98%.

NZ DOLLAR DOWN AGAINST US BUT UP AGAINST AUS
As might be expected from the tone of the US Fed, the Kiwi dollar slipped over half a US cent in the past 24 hours to be 68.8 USc. Against the AUD, however, we are up close to half an Aussie cent at 92.8 AUc. Against the EUR we are down at 63.2 euro cents. The TWI-5 is now at 73.84, which is down from at the same time yesterday.

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