Mike's Minute: The power of statistics

Given Westpac played what I would loosely call a dumb game this week with numbers, let me return serve.

Their numbers involved a bunch of what they call "necessities" and their prices over the past ten years.

White bread is up 120% and butter up 157%. Chicken though is only up 2%. So, if you ate a lot of chicken, not only would you be protein rich, you would have saved a fortune.

The CPI is up in that period 38%.

Chris Lynch: Commission files proceedings against Westpac for alleged breaches

The Commerce Commission has filed proceedings against Westpac New Zealand Ltd for allegedly breaching lender responsibility principles under the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act 2003 (CCCFA).

The Commission said multiple failures meant customers did not receive legally required information about their loans and, in some cases, agreed interest rate discounts were not applied.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Westpac's Chief Economist Backs up DownToEarth.Kiwi......

Westpac's Chief Economist Backs up DownToEarth.Kiwi regards the RBNZ paying lip service to Finance Minister Willis' amended Reserve Bank Act.

Some readers, and two of my economist work colleagues, expressed the view that the Blog got carried away arguing the Reserve Bank is acting outside its legal mandate in continuing to slash interest rates. We aired a similar concern by one of our Wellington subscribers, Matthew Williamson, posting his views. Our reasoning was simple - inflation is already at 2% in NZ - on target. Yet the RBNZ says it wants to cut the Official Cash Rate by a lot more.

Martien Lubberink: ComCom diagnoses the problem with NZ’s banking industry

ComCom diagnoses the problem with NZ’s banking industry – but will its solutions offer a real fix?

The New Zealand Commerce Commission recently released a draft report on the state of personal banking services in New Zealand. Unsurprisingly, the market study found a marked lack of competition among the largest financial institutions in Aotearoa New Zealand.

But will the government bailout of Kiwibank in 2022 or the arrival of fintechs make any long-term difference? If the commission’s report is to be believed – probably not.