ANZ tip the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to begin its rate hike cycle in October.
October 6 is the next scheduled RBNZ policy meeting.
ANZ cite (this in brief, bolding mine):
- With all of New Zealand except for Auckland now moving down to Alert Level 3, we're starting to see the light at the end of the Lockdown tunnel. Daily COVID case numbers look like they may have peaked (although the day-to-day movement can be pretty volatile). Responses to our Business Outlook received after lockdown (about 25% of the sample) showed that business sentiment has been encouragingly robust, especially compared with the drop we saw in April 2020. And, we've clearly gotten better at spending money during lockdown - daily card spending hasn't dropped as far as it did during the first lockdown (figure 1).
- So far, it's looking like October is still game on for the RBNZ to begin the OCR hiking cycle that was so rudely delayed by the current outbreak. Although as we note in our recent Quarterly Economic Outlook, there's still a lot that has to keep going right between now and October before hikes are locked in.
