A review of things you need to know before you go home Tuesday; ANZ NZ raises profits, citizens satisfied; NZSF goes low-carbon, tackling student loan defaulters, swaps firm, NZD stable

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.

BIGGER BUCKS
NZ's largest bank, the ANZ has posted a 9-month profit up +7%, a $1.275 bln 9-month profit. It says net interest margins have stabilised.

SATISFIED CITIZENS?
The State Services Commission is running regular satisfaction surveys for all public service departments, and have now been doing so for over ten years. They are showing good results. Trust is up, distrust is down. Those over 65 are especially happy. Satisfaction by citizens who are not NZ European has jumped to about the same level as for NZ European. There are only three (of 42) categories that have gone backwards: "Importing goods into NZ", "Living in a Housing NZ home", and "using Sorted.org.nz". Those who don't access Govt services online are more likely to be dissatisfied.

A $BILLION SHIFT
The NZ$35 bln NZ Super Fund’s NZ$14 bln global passive equity portfolio, 40% of the overall Fund, is now low-carbon. As at 30 June 2017, the total Fund’s carbon emissions intensity is 19.6% lower, and its exposure to carbon reserves is 21.5% lower, than if the changes hadn’t been made. The transition involved reallocating NZ$950 mln away from companies with high exposure to carbon emissions and reserves into lower-risk companies.

MOTIVATING STUDENT LOAN DEFAULTERS
Defaulting student loan borrowers in Australia have stumped up nearly NZ$5 mln in payments, thanks to new information received from tax authorities across the Tasman. An information exchange between the countries allows the Australian Taxation Office to provide the IRD with up-to-date contact details for Kiwi borrowers living in Australia. The first exchange in November 2016 provided new contact details for more than 57,000 borrowers, 38,000 of which were in default. A sample of these was then sent by Inland Revenue to a collection agency. By May 2017, repayments received were in excess of $4.7 mln, with some borrowers paying off their debt in full, and contacts from more than 3,000 to set up repayment plans. Since then, another batch of 10,000 defaulting borrowers have been targeted. An additional 12,000 borrowers have voluntarily contacted Inland Revenue since the arrangement has been in place.

LOOKING PROMISING
There is another dairy auction tomorrow morning. The derivatives market is signaling a +4.6% rise in WMP prices and a +2.7% rise in SMP prices. These things do't always go as the derivative market signals. But adding to those USD expectations is a -2.8% fall in the Kiwi dollar since the last auction, so that should also bolster the results.

WE ARE CHOOSING SOMEWHERE ELSE
The current public relationship between New Zealand and Australia is a bit testy at present, at least in the public slanging-match arena. Ian Narev has copped it, and now the Aussies are finding that many of their MPs are Kiwis as well, causing public angst. But we are probably not helping - the number of Kiwis visiting Australia has leveled off and the latest data shows a tiny decline - all in sharp contrast to growing visitor numbers from everywhere else. Apparently, we are not being grateful enough on the tourism front. (Visitors from China has just displaced those from here as their largest source of tourists.)

WHOLESALE RATES FIRM
Local swap rates continued with a second day of firming, this time following Wall Street. We are up +2 bps for a two year term, and you +3 bps for each term four years and longer. The 90 day bank bill rate is down by -1 bp to 1.95%. It has been in this tight range for five months now.

NZ DOLLAR STABLE
The Kiwi dollar is also in its tight range. It is now at 73 USc. On the cross rates we are also relatively unchanged at 92.7 AUc and at 62 euro cents. The TWI-5 is just over 75.6. The bitcoin price is up another +8% today and now at US$4,460 and a another new record high.

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