A review of things you need to know before you go home Thursday; Harmoney fattens up, another migration record, Public Trust losing guarantee, credit card use up, swaps and NZD unchanged

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes today.

DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
None here either. All quiet following today's RBNZ OCR no-change rate review.

FEEDING THE DEMAND
Treasury's Debt Management Office has announced a bond tender program for the July to September quarter of $1.35 bln. It will involve $300 mln of 2040 linkers, $600 mln of 2025 nominal bonds, and $450 mln of 2033 nominal bonds. There is strong demand for NZ;s sovereign bonds, helped along not least by growing conservative KiwiSaver balances.

LENDING THROUGH HARMONEY TOPS $500 MLN
Harmoney, NZ's first licensed peer-to-peer lender which launched in September 2014, says it has now matched borrowers and lenders/investors for loans topping $500 mln. Based on KPMG's most recent non-bank Financial Institutions Performance Survey, only five finance companies have bigger loan books than that. Harmoney facilitates unsecured personal loans for the likes of debt consolidation, home improvements, holidays and cars. The P2P lender is currently embroiled in a court case with the Commerce Commission, which is seeking to clarify the application of the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act to P2P lending.

ANOTHER RECORD
Net permanent migration breaks all previous records with a net gain of 72,000 in the year to May. Growth in non-New Zealanders moving here is the biggest driver of these record migration numbers. Of the 98,300 non-New Zealand citizen arrivals, 12% were from China, 10% were from the United Kingdom, and 10% were from Australia. Work visas are driving the trend now. Annual migrant arrivals from India fell -31% to 9,200 in the May 2017 year, mainly due to a -40% drop in annual student visa arrivals. Offsetting this were rises in migrant arrivals from the United Kingdom (up +12% to 15,100) and South Africa (up +59% to 5,000).

A SMALL MODERATION
Infometrics has taken a look at the tourist arrival numbers. They report: "The number of tourist arrivals cooled 3.0% in May, the largest monthly decline since March 2015 (seasonally adjusted). However, May arrivals were up 8.0% from last year, reassuring us that there is still strength in the industry. Furthermore, strong tourist numbers in May is promising, as it suggests that efforts to spread the peak load out into the shoulder months is having some success."

OFFICIAL ACCESS
China has approved formal access for New Zealand bovine blood products into the Chinese market. Bovine serum and protein products are used in the animal pharmaceutical industry for manufacturing vaccines, diagnostic kits, laboratory testing media, and a range of specialised products. This is likely to be worth at least $50 mln per year.

TACKLING AN UNFAIR ADVANTAGE
Ratings agency Fitch is to give the Public Trust a AA rating, one notch lower than their Crown rating. The Government has signaled a legislative change to remove their Crown guarantee. This will ensure it has no competitive advantage with its private sector rivals through being Crown-owned. But the Crown guarantee will remain in place until the legislation is passed by Parliament. This is likely to be in the second half of 2018.

A NEW SIGNAL
Businesses with tax debt of $150,000 or more will now have this status reported to credit agencies. That should allow other creditors the knowledge that their customer is in dispute with the IRD. The IRD always has priority for tax payments.

GETTING AWAY ON US?
Credit card balance growth is rising again. It was up +4.2% pa in the year to May and that is the fastest growth since September 2015. Amounts billed in New Zealand on cards issued in New Zealand were up +9.7% pa in May. For cards issued in New Zealand but used overseas the equivalent growth was +13.4%. Most people are not just using their credit cards on an interest-free basis (despite what they tell you). But the number who are is growing and that level is now 36.9% which is near its all-time high. Ten years ago (prior to the GFC) that level was 32.3% and it got down to under 30% in 2011.

GRASS CEILING BROKEN
West Coast dairy farmer Katie Milne is the new Federated Farmers’ National President - becoming the first woman in the Federation’s 118-year history to hold the presidency.

WHOLESALE RATES UNCHANGED
Apart from a +1 bp tweak at either end of the term spectrum (1yr and 10yr), there are no changes to swap rates today. But the 90 day bank bill rate has risen by +2 bps to 1.96% and that is the most this rate has changed in yonks.

NZ DOLLAR FIRMS
The NZD is marginally firmer than at this time yesterday at 72.5 USc. On the cross rates, against the Aussie we are quite a bit stronger at 96 AUc, and we are holding at 64.9 euro cents. The TWI-5 is now at 76.9. And bitcoin is down -2.1% on the day at US$2,711 today.

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