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As New Zealand holds its collective breath, waiting for interest rates to start falling again, here are the key OCR announcement dates you need in your diary for 2024 and 2025.

It finally looks like inflation is back in its box, and that means interest rate falls should be on the cards for sometime in 2024. But—with all the latest data pointing to a country firmly in recession—what cost has our battle against inflation had for New Zealand's economy?

The Reserve bank has grown more concerned about the pace with which inflation is falling in New Zealand, and have slightly delayed their pick for when they cut the official cash rate from the middle of 2025 into the second half. But will there be a chance that house prices will start falling while the OCR stays stuck at 5.50%?

Despite plenty of economic data showing enough damage has been done, the RBNZ is adamant rate falls won't be on the cards until 2025. And the reason for that, it turns out, is all down to a single number in the RBNZ's latest inflation forecast.

The Reserve Bank has a tradition of being too slow to hike and cut and is likely to continue this tradition because of its poor forecasting and lack of understanding of what is going on at the coalface of the economy. The market, however, is usually quicker to respond — will it be the one to lead a fall in interest rates this year?

Most commentators are picking it'll be late 2024 (or worse, 2025) before interest rates start falling again — but the Chief, David Cunningham, reckons there's a strong case for the RBNZ to begin dropping rates much sooner.

The economy is officially back in recession, and the prospects for a weaker labour market are scaring people. So, is everything bad and should we all go to Australia?

Once inflation's got its hooks in, it can take years for interest rate hikes to trickle through and reverse the damage. But, as Rodney Dickens explains, a more proactive approach from the RBNZ could go a long way to solving that problem.

The Reserve Bank is giving nothing away ahead of its first Official Cash Rate announcement of the year, in late February, but the market is increasingly anticipating rate falls to start sometime this year.

With NZ's latest inflation numbers out in late January, it looks like we're finally winning the battle — and we could see annual inflation come down relatively quickly in the coming months. So what would that mean for interest rates?

Put really simply, the Official Cash Rate is the interest rate that the banks earn on any money they’re holding with the Reserve Bank, and the rate they pay if they need to borrow funds.

Wholesale rates are one of the big drivers of bank mortgage rates — and in the last eight weeks or so, they’ve fallen about 0.7%. It’s a significant drop, which means they’re now back down to roughly where they were a year ago. So what does this mean for borrower interest rates?