A review of things you need to know before you go home Thursday; businesses not confident, building consents stagnating, Youi in trouble in Australia, housing debt growth slows, consumer debt growth leaps, swaps mixed, NZD down

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes to report today.

DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Update: ANZ signaled some rate cuts for terms 9 months to 5 years, with a small +5 bps rise for their low one year rate. The Police Credit Union has cut -20 bps from its bonus saver account.

BUSINESSES ARE NOT HAPPY
In the latest ANZ survey, business confidence turned sharply negative this month. Look at the chart here; we are back to 2009 confidence levels. Uncertainty around changing Government policy, a softer housing market, and difficulty getting credit are likely culprits. Weakness was apparent across all activity indicators, but pricing intentions, inflation expectations and interest rates expectations all increased. ANZ says there is a real risk, given an economy at a delicate juncture, that the fall in activity expectations could prove to be self-fulfilling. Outcomes will depend crucially on how prolonged the apprehension proves to be.

NEW HOUSING PULLBACK
The number of new dwelling consents issued in October was below where it was 12 months ago. Ironically, there were far fewer apartment (affordable) consents which outweighed a small increase in single family house (not-so-affordable) consents. The trend across the regions was mixed. There were a few areas of strong growth in the North Island, but much of the South Island saw falls on an annual basis.

DITTO FOR COMMERCIAL PROJECTS
And the approval of buidings for other-than-housing also fell sharply - except for one large University of Auckland consent. Non-residential building consents totaled $584 mln in October, up +11% from a year earlier. However, it would have been a -12% fall if it wasn't for the $120 mln consent for the University of Auckland’s new engineering building.

TURNING UP
In contrast, Aussie building approvals jumped sharply, up +19.6% year-on-year. This was even higher that the positive +14.1% estimates by market watchers. Still, over the full year to October, these consents are still down -7.3% from the same 12 months a year ago. If we don't watch out, Kiwi builders will move across the Tasman for work, making KiwiBuild even harder to achieve.

IN AUSTRALIA TOO
In Australia, Youi has refunded 102 consumers approximately AU$14,000 in total, and will pay AU$150,000 as a community benefit payment to the Financial Rights Legal Centre's Insurance Law Service, after ASIC challenged its home and car insurance sales practices. It was the same behaviour seen in New Zealand; some sales staff were charging consumers for insurance policies without their consent to purchase. This included where consumers only made an inquiry to get an insurance quote.

HOUSING DEBT GROWTH SLOWS
New Zealand housing debt grew by $1.064 bln in October from September, the slowest growth for an October since 2014. On a year-on-year basis, it is up +6.2%, the slowest growth in more than two years. That growth rate has tailed off in every month of 2017 (it was +9.3% in December 2016).

CONSUMER DEBT GROWS FASTER
Consumer debt is now growing very fast. It is up +7.7% year-on-year and that is its fastest pace since November 2005. Banks have been lagging finance companies in this sector but have really started to pick up their appetite for more consumer debt in the last six months after having pulled back over the past two years.

COMMERCIAL DEBT GROWTH MIXED
Business debt is growing faster again, up +6.4% year-on-year to October. But rural debt is marking time, only up +2.5% on the same basis.

AUSTRALIA TO GET A BANKING ROYAL COMMISSION
Australian government announces Royal Commission into alleged misconduct of financial services providers pledging 'it won't be a never-ending lawyers’ picnic'. Also, see this.

THE COST OF ZOMBIES
In China, badly performing local authority-owned enterprises being kept alive excessive debt are taking more than -1.2% off the Chinese growth rate, says the IMF. Meanwhile, an IMF review of the Hong Kong economy sees growth rising to +3.5% next year.

WHOLESALE RATES MIXED
Swap rates are up +/-1 bp across the curve. But of note, the one year fell -1 bp to a record low 1.99%. The 90 day bank bill rate has slipped back -1 bp to 1.91%.

NZ DOLLAR LOWER
The NZ dollar is lower and is now at 68.5 USc, falling sharply on the poor business confidence survey. On the cross rates we are just under 90.3 AUc, and 57.7 euro cents. That has the TWI-5 down to at 71.3. Bitcoin is still on a wild ride. Today it rose at one point to US$11,364, three hours later it had fallen to US$9,301, but now it is back to US$10,318.

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