Welcome to interest.co.nz's morning briefing of what's news here and around the world. Everything you need to start the day in 90 seconds at 9'oclock.... Starting now
With news that the Bank of New Zealand has increased its fixed mortgage rates.
This completes the set of big banks that have passed on higher wholesale funding costs to customers in the last couple of weeks.
BNZ increased its two year standard fixed mortgage rate to 9.69%, in line with the 9.7% that the ASB, ANZ, National and Westpac have lifted their 2 year rates to.
Meanwhile, the government's main economic adviser, Treasury, has warned that the housing market is slowing more rapidly than expected. It says it will soon drag on consumer spending. It said higher interest rates and slower net migration were behind the rapid slowdown, which would see prices fall by the end of 2008.
And finally the Reserve Bank of New Zealand believes the New Zealand dollar could have risen much higher in recent months because of the sharp increase in New Zealand's interest rate advantage over other currencies. But its says timid speculators may have helped keep a lid on the Kiwi.
Lucky us.
That was 90 seconds at 9 o'clock. I'm Bernard Hickey for interest.co.nz.
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