A review of things you need to know before you go home Monday; SBS Bank raises mortgage rate, Heartland raises TD rate, TradeMe to offer personal loans, curbs coming for bank risk weights, affordability improves, swaps and NZD up

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
SBS Bank increased their 2 year 'special' by +6 bps to 4.85%. They also increased their 18 mth, 2 and 3 year standard rates.*

DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Heartland have launched a 3.55% five month rate, with a $1,000 $1 minimum.

EASIER IMPULSE
Trade Me is teaming up with Afterpay, an Australian “buy now, pay later” online payments provider. This will allow Trade Me sellers to offer interest-free deferred payments to buyers, via Afterpay, later in 2017. Buyers will pay however if they miss a payment date. And sellers are charged by AfterPay for use of their platform (a bit like the way credit card companies charge merchants). AfterPay is not issue-free and there are many Aussie users who have not had a great experience. The whole motivation for installing this service is to get TradeMe users to make impulse purchases.

TIGHTER RULES, MORE CAPITAL, HIGHER RATES
Revised rules for how banks self-manage their internal risk assessments are on their way from the BIS. Big banks will still be able to self-assess risk, but there will be a floor under which they can't go. The aim is to ensure banks don't game the rules in the way they seem to be doing under current rules. The floor looks like it will be set at 70% - maybe 75% - of the Standardised rules. A leverage ratio surcharge may also be imposed by regulators for systemically important banks. It is not sure whether any of ours will be caught by this, but local regulators like APRA may take this as an opportunity to think locally. By any measure, these changes are likely to require more bank capital for the same level of lending. In turn, that will likely raise the costs at banks for as long as shareholders seek their gold-plated returns.

EASIER TO BUY
Major falls in Auckland house prices have improved first home buyer affordability in April. Lower house prices and static mortgage rates drove this improvement, which was also substantial in many other parts of the country.

ANOTHER VIEW OF INVESTOR CONFIDENCE
An FMA investor confidence survey has revealed sharply different perceptions depending on who you are. It is lowest among KiwiSaver investors and highest among property investors.

IT WASN'T NORTH KOREA AFTER ALL
The WannaCry malware extortion may have originated in China, according the a recent analysis.

ANOTHER RETAIL BOND OFFER
Westpac New Zealand has today launched a 5 year Fixed Rate Medium Term Note offer for $100 mln with unlimited over-subscriptions. It will pay 1.1% over the 5 year swap rate (currently about 2.74%) as set on June 1, 2017.

WHOLESALE RATES UP
Local swaps rates have risen a little today in the shadow of public holidays in the US and China. The two year is up +2 bps, the five year is up +2 bps, and the ten year is up +3 bps. The 90 day bank bill rate is unchanged at 1.97%.

NZ DOLLAR FIRM
The NZD is up today and is now at 70.6 USc in very light trading. On the crosses we are at 94.8 AUc, and at 63.2 euro cents. The TWI-5 is now over 75. The talk in Australia is of an Aussie dollar that will slip against the greenback, mainly because the yield advantage is disappearing. That talk is that the AUD is heading to 70 USc - which is where the Kiwi dollar is today. Unless we fall with our cousins, we may be about to make another run at parity.

* Update: An earlier version of this story mis-stated the SBS Bank mortgage rate change.

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