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Asia PacificAustralia's COVID-19 win to help fuel economic growth this year
Vivek Mishra
4 minutes read
The Australian economy will grow this year at its fastest pace since 2007, driven by massive stimulus and as the country has largely been able to contain the transmission of the novel coronavirus unlike its rich-world peers, a Reuters poll showed.
At a time when most major economies are battling a fresh wave of coronavirus cases, Australia has largely curtailed the outbreak, counting only about 30,000 local infections and 910 deaths since the start of the pandemic. (Interactive graphic tracking global spread of coronavirus: open https://tmsnrt.rs/2FThSv7 in an external browser)

Government ‘pleased’ with property price growth
14 April 2021
Maja Garaca Djurdjevic
The government said it is not concerned about the RBA’s warning that the financial system could be rocked if there’s a debt blowout; in fact, it is “very pleased” that confidence levels are leading to a “strong housing market”.
Last week, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) warned that optimistic borrowers could lead to a debt blowout, rocking the financial system.
“Even if lenders do not weaken their own settings, increased risk-taking by optimistic borrowers could see a deterioration in the average quality of new lending. This would weaken the resilience of businesses and households, and so the financial system, to future shocks,” the RBA said in its Financial Stability Review.

Currency Pair of the Week: AUD/NZD
Joe Perry
April 12, 2021 2:19 PM
The RBNZ meeting and the Australian Employment are both this week!
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Australia will release their Employment data this week on Thursday.  Expectations are for an additional 35,000 jobs to be added to the economy.  In February, 88,700 jobs were added, of which just about all were full-time jobs!  The unemployment rate is expected to drop from 5.8% to 5.7%.  Last week, the RBA met and left interest rates unchanged at 0.1% and began a new A$100 billion bond purchase program.  The committee noted that they would leave monetary policy accommodative until actual inflation is withing their 2%-3% target, which they don’t expect to be until 2024.  Housing prices are rising, and fears are stirring of an overheated market.  If jobs come in stronger than expected, will this force the RBA to reconsider policy with a hot housing market?  One idea is that the RBA can focus their bond buying on longer durations.  This would help keep rates lower in the belly of the curve.  The central bank currently targets the 3-year yield and aims to keep it at 10 bps.   Although Australia is behind other countries with its vaccinations, they have done a great job at controlling the coronavirus.  Therefore, this isn’t as pressing of an issue, compared to areas such as Europe.

4/6/2021 1:53:28 AM GMT
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By Anil Panchal
AUD/USD keeps retreat to the mid-0.7600s despite upbeat China activity numbers.
China Caixin Services PMI jumps to 54.3 in March, Aussie ANZ Job Advertisements rose as well.
Risk dwindles amid a lack of major directives but bears’ aren’t invited.
RBA may sound optimistic while conveying monetary policy inaction, though bonds, employment are the keywords to follow.
AUD/USD pauses pullback from intraday top of 0.7662 around 0.7650 during early Tuesday. In doing so, the Aussie pair takes clues from China’s Caixin Services PMI data for March but cautious sentiment ahead of the RBA probes the recovery moves.

In recent months there's been an astonishing spike in house prices across the country.
Sydney prices had the most rapid rise, up 3.7 per cent while housing values in regional areas rose 11.4 per cent over the past year.
Guest: Martin North, Principal of Digital Finance Analytics
Producer:

RBA again keeps rates and policy on hold
The Reserve Bank has left monetary policy unchanged after its board meeting, amid stronger-than-expected economic data.
Business
by David Rogers
Premium Content
The Reserve Bank has left monetary policy unchanged after its monthly board meeting.
In a statement, RBA Governor Philip Lowe said the board decided to maintain the current monetary policy settings, including targets of 10 basis points for the cash rate and the yield on the three-year Australian Government bond, as well as the parameters of the term funding facility and the government bond purchase program.
Australian economic data have mostly been stronger than expected in the past month.

RBA makes cash rate call for April
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The RBA has announced its official cash rate decision for the month of April.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has held the official cash rate at 0.10 per cent for April, in line with the central bank’s stance on interest rates and market expectations.
In his statement on the monetary policy decision, RBA governor Dr Philip Lowe said that the central bank will continue to monitor trends in housing borrowing “carefully” given that house prices have risen in most markets, adding that “it is important that lending standards are maintained”.

The RBA has made its latest decision on monetary policy as house prices skyrocket and bond yields rise. The RBA has left interest rates on hold at 0.1 per cent, saying that while it was monitoring the

RBA reveals April cash rate call
By Maja Garaca Djurdjevic
06 April 2021
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1 minute read
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The Reserve Bank of Australia has made its April call on the official cash rate, following its decision to cut the rate to a record low in November.
In line with expectations, the RBA has held the cash rate at a record low of 0.1 of a percentage point. 
“At its meeting today, the board decided to maintain the current policy settings, including the targets of 10 basis points for the cash rate and the yield on the three-year Australian government bond, as well as the parameters of the Term Funding Facility and the government bond purchase program,” the RBA said. 

The Reserve Bank of Australia has made its decision on the official cash rate for April ahead of a surge in the housing market and policy implications for a rapidly recovering economy.

Why the RBA is reluctant to stop the housing boom
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Properties are selling quickly across the country.
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Each weekend, across the country, they line up for a quick COVID-restricted viewing. 
They are shuffled in from the driveway and from the street, subjected to a toned-down version of the usual spin from agents whose main task these days is to act as crowd control marshals and fend off requests for contracts. 
The competition is intense. Young couples nervously eye each other off, would-be rivals in a quest for their slice of the great Australian dream.

KPMG
A smooth international roll-out of vaccines this year would boost the Australian economy by $17bn and generate nearly 40,000 jobs, new analysis by KPMG Economics finds.
On the downside, continued international travel restrictions until the end of 2021, resulting in global services trade remaining depressed, would result in lower Australian GDP of $4bn and 13,100 fewer jobs.
Scenarios modelled in KPMG’s latest Quarterly Economic Outlook show there could be a 2.8 percent boost to world GDP in an ‘upside’ case, where the global vaccination program is accelerated – both in terms of coverage and speed – enabling all countries to fully open their international borders to travellers from the beginning of 2022.

European Open: Aussie jobs surge, BOE meeting in focus
City Index
March 18, 2021 6:32 AM
Yet more data from Australia’s rebounding economy goes at odds with the RBA’s dovish stance. And whilst on the central bank theme, the Bank of England (BOE) meet this morning.
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Australia's ASX 200 index fell by -49.3 points (-0.73%) to close at 6,745.90
Japan's Nikkei 225 index has risen by 305.16 points (1.02%) and currently trades at 30,192.83
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index has risen by 406.76 points (1.4%) and currently trades at 29,440.88
UK and Europe:
UK's FTSE 100 futures are currently up 26 points (0.38%), the cash market is currently estimated to open at 6,788.67

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Ombudsman shares RBA concern over small business access to finance
The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman Bruce Billson has backed the RBA’s plea to banks to treat small businesses differently to consumers when considering loan applications.
Mr Billson welcomed further scrutiny of small business access to finance pledged by RBA Assistant Governor Chris Kent in today’s address to the Australian Finance Industry Association.
“Finance is the oxygen of enterprise,” Mr Billson says.
“Mr Kent’s comment that access to finance for small businesses has been a long-standing challenge and is now tighter than before the pandemic, is correct.

RBA highlights SME finance ‘challenge’
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The RBA’s assistant governor (financial markets) has acknowledged the “longstanding challenge” that SMEs face in accessing finance, adding that “business failures” are expected to rise.
Speaking at an Australian Finance Industry Association (AFIA) event in Sydney on Wednesday (17 March), RBA assistant governor (financial markets) Christopher Kent said that the bank’s work and its engagement with industry over the past 30 years had found that “a consistent and ongoing theme is that smaller businesses find it a challenge to access finance”.
Barriers to finance
The RBA assistant governor for financial markets told AFIA delegates that these challenges include the fact that lenders “reject a greater proportion of loan applications from smaller businesses” given that they “tend to be [viewed as being] riskier than large, established firms with a track record of profitability” and that lenders therefore typically “charge more to take on the additional risk associated with the loans that they provide”.

Volatility remains capped overall, yet overnight trade has seen Asian shares track Wall Street higher and European futures pare yesterday’s losses.

AUD/USD steps back from an intraday high of 0.7763 to 0.7758 after RBA Governor Philip Lowe’s speech during the early Monday’s Asian session. Although

Following
AUD/USD Weekly Forecast: Pressure mounts in the near-term, but bulls still has an ace up the sleeveANALYSIS
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3/12/2021 3:43:24 PM GMT
The Reserve Bank of Australia took action to curb the yields rally.
The US Federal Reserve is having a monetary policy meeting this week.
AUD/USD could fall towards 0.7620 but the long-term bullish picture persists.
The AUD/USD pair is has managed to post a modest advance this week,  recovering well above the 0.7700 threshold. The greenback strengthened on the back of soaring government bond yields, but in the case of AUD/USD, the stronger dollar was partially offset by Wall Street reaching all-time highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P both hit records on Thursday, after US President Joe Biden signed the $ 1.9 trillion stimulus bill into law, granting more easy money to markets.

AUD/USD takes rounds to 0.7755-50 during the initial Asian session on Tuesday after a dull start to the week portrayed the previous day. In doing so,

With the federal government adamant stimulus needs to be wound back, the Reserve Bank will need to become a lot more creative if it wants to engineer a sustained recovery, writes Ian Verrender.

RBA puts to rest rate rise chatter and washes hands of house price boom
By Maja Garaca Djurdjevic
10 March 2021
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1 minute read
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The Reserve Bank of Australia has put to rest chatter among investors that conditions for a higher cash rate could be met as early as next year and reaffirmed its position that its job does not involve targeting housing prices. 
As the RBA announced its rate hold earlier this month, chatter among investors increased, with many predicting that given the property price boom, the bank could be forced to intervene earlier than planned.
Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital, tipped at the time that a rate hike could occur in the March quarter 2023. 

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Visa undertakes to address competition concerns over debit card payments
The ACCC has accepted a court-enforceable undertaking from Visa AP (Australia) Pty Ltd and Visa Worldwide Pte Limited (together, Visa) in relation to concerns that Visa may have limited competition in relation to debit card acceptance through its dealings with large merchants.
“The ACCC was concerned that Visa’s strong market position in the credit card acceptance market could be leveraged to limit competition in the debit card acceptance market by tying the offer of cheaper strategic merchant rates for credit card transactions to a commitment from the merchant to process Visa branded dual network debit card transactions via the Visa network and not through eftpos,” ACCC Chair Rod Sims said.

Philip Lowe, the Reserve Bank of Australia’s chief, has spoken out against bond markets pricing in an earlier tightening of monetary policy ...

Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe warns on house price boom
Posted
TueTuesday 9
updated
WedWednesday 10
MarMarch 2021 at 12:36am
RBA governor Philip Lowe says the board is keeping a close eye on the booming housing market.
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The Reserve Bank has issued its bluntest warning yet about the dangers of the latest house price boom, and the possibility regulators may step in to deflate it.
Key points:
RBA governor Philip Lowe admitted low interest rates are driving up house prices, but said the bank will not adjust its policy based on the housing market
Mr Lowe said there are "various other tools" to keep house prices in check