A review of things you need to know before you go home on Friday; HSBC goes to 3.79% again, business pay faster, more new-build lending, savings rate turns negative, swaps and NZD soft, & more

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
HSBC has reprised its 3.79% one year fixed mortgage rate, by far the lowest in the market. (It previously had this lowest-ever rate in August-October 2016.)

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
No changes announced today.

RECORD SPEED
New data out from illion (the re-named Dun & Bradstreet) shows that businesses are paying their bills in the fastest time on record. On average, they are only 5.2 days past due in September (and for bills due on the 20th of the month following, the average time to pay them is now on the 25th). This 5.2 days past due compares with 5.9 days past due in September 2017 and 12.5 days past due in September 2013. Across all industries, 82% of all bills are paid on time. Agriculture firms are the fastest to pay with an average past due time of just 3.1 days. The fishing industry are the slowest payers at 8.1 days past due. Large businesses are the slowest (7.2 days past due), small businesses are the fastest (4.5 days).

NEW-BUILDS SHOWING THROUGH
Growth in lending for new house builds is at a four-year high, outstripping growth for new loans for existing houses according to the latest figures released by ANZ. In the year to September 2018, lending for new builds grew at +9%, outstripping growth for new loans for existing houses at +5%, they say. Bank-wide RBNZ data doesn't show new-build data, but it does show first-home buyer demand up +25% year-on-year to September.

HOT DEMAND, LOW YIELD
Chorus reported strong demand for its issue of ten year unsecured, unsubordinated, re-setting fixed rate bonds. It will issue $500 mln, and this includes oversubscriptions of $200 mln. The interest rate for the first five year period has been set at 4.35% pa, being the minimum offered (and due to the very strong demand). These bonds come with a negative pledge, and will be rated BBB which is investment-grade.

CO-OP BANK PROFIT DIPS
The Co-operative Bank has posted a 2% drop in six month profit after tax to $5.6 million. The drop was largely attributable to fee reductions and a 6% increase in expenses driven by technology and staff costs. Bad debts rose $600,000. During the half year the bank grew loans at an annualised rate of 8% and deposits at 4%.

TURNING NEGATIVE AGAIN
The RBNZ publsihed the household savings rate for 2018 today and revised the 2017 rate. The 2017 revision changed an earlier-reported negative -2.8% savings rate to a positive +0.1% final rate. Their estimate for 2018 is a negative savings rate of -1.4%. The household savings rate is gross household disposable income less household final consumption expenditure and consumption of fixed capital. Our household savings rate was positive (+0.3%) over the period from 2009 to 2017, but was strongly negative (-2.9%) in the previous nine years.

NET INTEREST MARGIN DIPS
The overall retail bank net interest margin dipped in the September quarter to 2.1%, down from 2.13% in both June and March.

BIG OVERLOOKED ASSET
Data out today from the RBNZ shows the total value of KiwiSaver as at September 2018 at $53.6 bln, up +$8.6 bln in a year. This rise includes both contributions plus net earnings. KiwiSaver funds now represent 36% of all managed funds and these balances are growing by +19% pa. Superannuation funds are now down to 20%, cash management fund share is down to under 10%, and retail unit trusts are holding at 28% of all managed funds. All up, managed funds are now worth $137 bln for households. and is often an asset we overlook, especially the non-KiwiSaver portion. The non-KiwiSaver portion grew an impressive +12% in the year to September.

TAME EXPANSION
In Australia, their factory PMI is still expanding at a moderate pace at 54.5. But their services PMI expansion is pretty weak even if it did rise in November marginally to 52.6. (The NZ factory PMI was 53.5 in October, our services PMI was 55.4.)

SHANGHAI DOWN
Wall Street may be closed but Shanghai isn't, and it is sharply lower today, down -1.4% in mid morning trade. Both the Australian and New Zealand exchange indexes are up modestly.

SWAP RATES SOFT
Wholesale swap rates are down-1 bps to 2yrs, and for 5yrs and 10yr swaps they are down -2 bps. The UST 10yr is still at 3.07% basically because Wall Street is on holiday. The 2-10 curve is still at just under +25 bps. The Aussie Govt 10yr is at 2.67%, unchanged, the China Govt 10yr is down -2 bps at 3.40%, while the NZ Govt 10 yr is at 2.70% and that is down -3 bps. The 90 day bank bill rate is unchanged at 2.00%.

BITCOIN FALLS SHARPLY
The bitcoin price is now at US$4,189 and that is an -8% net drop in the past 24 hours.

NZD MARGINALLY SOFTER
The NZD is softer today at 68.1 USc. On the cross rates we at 93.9 AUc and at 59.7 euro cents. That puts the TWI-5 down to 72.5.

This chart is animated here. For previous users, the animation process has been updated and works better now.