A review of things you need to know before you go home on Wednesday; clean over here, no LVR relief yet, more Auckland consents, no leverage progress, Apple casual about our law, swaps drop, NZD stable

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
No changes to report today.

TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
No changes here either.

NO TAINT HERE
The FMA and RBNZ jointly reported the results of their assessment of culture risk in New Zealand's banks. They say they have found no evidence of systemic behaviour like that seen in Australia which prompted their Royal Commission inquiry, and concede banks operating here haven't undermined their "social licence". The responsible Government ministers accept the findings.

KEEPING THE LID ON; ITS HELPING
In their latest Financial Stability Review, the Reserve Bank says financial risks have lessened but they will not be loosening their LVR restrictions at this stage and will wait till November 'at least' before any loosening is contemplated.

MORE BUT AVERAGES FALL
Building consent levels are rising in Auckland, but slipping elsewhere. That is good news for Aucklanders with the number of new dwelling consents up and average values falling, suggesting a shift towards more affordable new housing.

NO LEVERAGE PROGRESS
With the release of the Dashboard data today, we are able to complete our bank leverage update to March 2018. That shows little improvement. Other than Rabobank, which has sensible leverage, all other retail banks have too little capital invested in them with leverage ranging from about 12x or 13x times more assets than shareholders funds (for the four Aussie owned banks) up to 12x to 15x times for locally owned banks. Depositors provive the bulk of the capital in these institutions but don't get rewarded for that risk. As we have called for in the past, shareholders need to step up. The worry is the lack of progress on this score.

IT IS BAD, BUT NOT FOR ALL FARMERS
The serious issues facing the dairy and beef industries around mycoplasma bovis as well documented. But sheep and deer farmers are doing very well (as are other non-livestock farmers). In fact, saleyard store lamb prices this week are +31% higher this week in the North Island that in the same week a year ago. In the South Island, the rise is +18%. Venison and velvet prices are also sky-high, and not suffering an off-season drop as is usual in this sector.

OTHER CONSENTS UP STRONGLY
Non-residential building consents are rising. Infometrics reports: "The value of non-residential consents in April was up +29% from a year earlier, driven by a 41% increase in consents for new buildings. Breaking this increase down by regions shows that Canterbury was the biggest driver of this growth, and has been the largest driver of consent growth in the past three months. Although non-residential consents in the Canterbury region have come down from their post-quake highs, there’s still a lot of building to go."

WINTER BENEFITS RISING
The new Winter Energy Payment is to help with the cost of heating your home over winter. It will amount to a total of $266 if you are single, $414 for a couple. Couples and people with dependent children will get an extra $31.82 a week. If you're single, you'll get an extra $20.46 a week. These payments will start from 1 July and continue until 29 September 2018. The Winter Energy Payment won't affect other payments you get from us and isn't considered income (for tax purposes). And it isn't means tested for anyone on NZ Super. It will cost taxpayers $375 mln per year.

APPLE CASUAL ABOUT NEW ZEALAND CONSUMER LAWS
The Commerce Commission has warned Apple Sales New Zealand after it likely misled consumers about their Consumer Guarantees Act (CGA) rights and about its replacement products being new. Apple told some customers that their products were only covered by consumer law for two years and the Commission considered that this was misleading as the guarantees in the CGA do not expire after a legally prescribed period of time. The Commission also warned Apple in relation to: telling consumers that they must accept a defined number of replacement goods before an alternative remedy would be made available when the CGA imposes no such limits on available remedies; excluding liability for consequential losses when consumers might be entitled to compensation for some losses of that kind under the CGA, depending on the circumstances; providing conflicting information on Apple’s website about whether spare parts and repairs would, or would not, be available for some products; leading consumers to believe that their faulty Apple products were being replaced with new products when they were in fact supplied with re-manufactured products.

BENCHMARK INTEREST RATES SHARPLY LOWER
Local swap rates flattened and fell sharply today following Wall Street last night. Actually, our one year swap rate rose +3 bps,our two year fell -1 bp, our five year fell -4 bps and out ten year fell -6 bps and now just 3.06%. The 2/10 curve is now only +86 bps, down from +115 bps in mid February and back to the levels we last saw in mid April. The UST 10yr yield has risen after Wall Street closed to now be up +3 bps to 2.82%. The Aussie Govt 10 yr is now at 2.64% (down -8 bps). The China 10 yr is at 3.64%, unchanged. And the NZ Govt 10 yr is up +2 bps to 2.76%. The 90 day bank bill rate is up +1 bps to 2.01%.

BITCOIN BOUNCES
The bitcoin price is now at US$7,527 which is up +5.9% from this time yesterday.

NZ DOLLAR HOLDS
The NZD is down to 69 USc but that is unchanged from where we started this morning. But we are slightly higher against the Aussie at 92.2 AUc, and also up slightly against the euro at 59.9 euro cents. That has the TWI-5 now at 72.3 and little changed from yesterday.

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