Of Interest

If things go well in four key areas where work is underway to tackle methane emissions from farm animals they could "make a big hole" in New Zealand's agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, according to Mark Aspin, consortium manager at the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Consortium. The Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Consortium is a public-private partnership that has been working for 20 years to reduce agricul...

According to Statistics New Zealand's Consumers' Price Index (CPI) inflation is running above 7%, its highest level since 1990. The Reserve Bank, tasked with targeting CPI inflation of between 1% and 3%, has been aggressively increasing its Official Cash Rate, which means higher interest rates flow through to borrowers and savers. Given the importance of the CPI as a measure of the changes in the...

There's no reason why a partnership between the Government and banks making equity investments in small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) wouldn't work in New Zealand, says the man who heads up such a fund in Australia. The NZ Government expects the major banks to be in a position soon to decide whether to join it as an investor in a business growth fund (BGF). This comes after last year's Budget...

Silicon Valley Bank’s meltdown this week was partly because it had been investing customer deposits in US Treasuries, considered one of the world’s safest investments, without hedging the risk of interest rates rising.  Last year was the first since 1870 that bonds and equities both experienced an annual decline, as the interest rate shock destroyed the value of assets in almost all classes.  Inve...

Just a couple of years ago there was huge excitement about buy now pay later (BNPL) companies. Via smartphone applications, or apps, their buy now and pay over installments service0 was drawing in consumers and worrying banks. The high water mark saw US payments company Square, now Block, strike a US$29 billion deal to acquire Australian BNPL service provider Afterpay in August 2021. But 18 months...

In a rare show of bipartisan cooperation , the Labour and National parties teamed-up to enact new housing intensification laws in late 2021. This came through the Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Act. Pushed through a rushed select committee process to the protestations of the ACT and Green parties, it will allow the building of up to three homes of up to t...

Money laundering is a scourge of the modern financial world. Whether it's the actual dirty money stretching its tentacles and influence widely, or the US$210 billion annual tick-box compliance effort as people and companies strive to meet anti-money laundering laws, the impact is massive. In a new book,  The War on Dirty Money,  authors Nicholas Gilmour and Tristram Hicks detail the failings of th...

After their Government's "clumsily conceived and executed lurch" away from its zero-Covid policy, the Chinese people are "back to work with real energy," says David Mahon. Mahon, the Beijing-based Managing Director of Mahon China Investment Management, spoke to interest.co.nz in the latest episode of our  Of Interest podcast . "China has to come some distance still to get away from the fear of thi...

Auckland's unprecedented flooding highlights the importance of climate adaptation finance and the potential for parametric insurance, says David Hall. Hall, Climate Policy Director at Toha and until recently Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences and Public Policy at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT), spoke to interest.co.nz for the  Of Interest podcast . Hall says in events like the recent...

The Reserve Bank ought to move faster to offload the government bonds bought during its 2020-21 quantitative easing programme to unwind the distorted effect this has on the financial system, says John McDermott. McDermott, Executive Director of economic and policy research institute Motu is also a former Reserve Bank Assistant Governor.  He says quantitative easing (QE) via the Reserve Bank's larg...

Geopolitical tensions are playing a significant role in the growth of cybercrime and New Zealand should consider following Australia's lead and having a Minister of Cyber Security. That's the view of Adam Boileau, Executive Director of security, testing and assurance at cyber security provider CyberCX. Speaking in a new episode of interest.co.nz's  Of Interest podcast , Boileau says it's clear cyb...

The Reserve Bank recently increased the Official Cash Rate by a record 75 basis points as it tries to engineer a recession to fight  the highest inflation in more than 30 years . But is bashing the economy into submission with its big, blunt monetary policy tool the best approach?  To probe this and more I spoke with David McLeish, Head of Fixed Income at Fisher Funds Management, in the latest epi...

With three months between the Reserve Bank's last monetary policy review of 2022 and first one of 2023, it will be watching "high frequency data" during the break closely, says Karen Silk, Reserve Bank Assistant Governor and General Manager of Economics, Financial Markets and Banking. Speaking in a new episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest Podcast , Silk, also a member of the Monetary Policy Com...

The Covid-19 pandemic has been a really challenging time, the likes of which we haven't experienced since World War Two. And it's against this backdrop that the Reserve Bank is waging its fight against the highest inflation since the 1980s, Kiwibank Chief Economist Jarrod Kerr says. Speaking in a new episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest Podcast , Kerr says he expects the Reserve Bank to increas...

New Zealand ought to move from an "ad hoc" immigration policy disconnected from other public policy settings to a long-term government policy statement to assist with infrastructure and other planning, Productivity Commission Chairman Ganesh Nana says. Speaking in the latest episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest Podcast , Nana says the government's formal response to the Productivity Commission'...

Why do banks love housing so much? Is this good for the overall economy? And if not what, if anything, could be done to change things? We address these questions in the latest episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest Podcast with Martien Lubberink, Associate Professor at Victoria University’s School of Accounting and Commercial Law. Lubberink has previously worked for the Dutch central bank and con...

The resumption of overseas tourism isn't merely a matter of flicking a switch with everything then returning to how it was. Rebecca Ingram, Chief Executive of Tourism Industry Aotearoa, says the industry, dramatically impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic with the border closed and domestic travel restricted for periods of time, continues to face major challenges. Speaking in the latest episode of int...

There's no silver bullet law that parliament could pass to cover off all the good and bad aspects of the crypto and blockchain industry, according to an adviser to the parliamentary select committee running a cryptocurrency inquiry. Speaking in the latest episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest Podcast ,  MinterEllisonRuddWatts partner Jeremy Muir discusses a wide range of crypto-asset related iss...

Six years after Auckland Council passed the Unitary Plan , with scope for increased housing densification to boost supply and improve affordability, what impact has it had? Quite a bit according to University of Auckland Associate Professor of Economics Ryan Greenaway-McGrevy. Speaking in the latest episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest Podcast , Greenaway-McGrevy talks about a recent paper he c...

In 2005 Earl Bardsley wrote an article published in the Journal of Hydrology highlighting the possibility and potential of a pumped hydro storage reservoir at Lake Onslow in Central Otago. Fifteen years later Energy and Resources minister Megan Woods announced $30 million had been allocated to develop a business case to tackle New Zealand's dry year storage problem. This would mostly focus on a pu...

Following probes into the conduct and culture of banks and life insurers in 2018 and 2019, the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) is preparing to start regulating the conduct of financial institutions. The incoming regime aims to ensure financial institutions do what's best for their customers over the entire lifecycle of a financial product, and introduces a fair conduct principle through which fi...

Paul Conway, the Reserve Bank's Chief Economist and former Economics and Research Director at the Productivity Commission, is optimistic that better times may be ahead for New Zealand's lagging productivity performance. Speaking in the latest episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest Podcast , Conway says New Zealanders work about 10% more hours per person, but produce about 20% less output than wor...

China is far and away New Zealand's key export market. But this comes with risks. China is an authoritarian one-party state. Its human rights record  came under fire from the United Nations this week, and China's growing international assertiveness is seeing it butt heads with the United States and increase its influence in the South Pacific. Against this backdrop, is it possible that NZ is too de...

Against the backdrop of a sweltering summer, China's Covid-zero policy rumbles on, the country's commercial property sector teeters, and youth unemployment soars. To talk about all these issues and more, I spoke to Beijing-based David Mahon, Managing Director of Mahon China Investment Management, for the latest episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest Podcast . On the weather Mahon says it's China'...

In 2015 when he and his wife Selena published  Generation Rent Rethinking New Zealand’s Priorities , economist Shamubeel Eaqub admits he was pessimistic about the housing market. That has now changed.  Speaking in interest.co.nz's Of Interest Podcast ,  Eaqub, now of economic consultancy Sense Partners, explains why he's now optimistic about the housing market. "I think there is a consensus across...