Latest / The Kākā by Bernard Hickey
RBNZ paying billions to banks in interest, plus lending $19b cheaply to banks
TL;DR: The taxpayer is set to pay banks upwards of $3.3 billion in interest costs on over $53 billion of cash balances they’ve built up in settlement accounts at the Reserve Bank since covid, Jenee Tibshraeny has revealed in a NZ Herald-$$$ scoop this morning from documents obtained under the OIA.
Financial Minister Grant Robertson considered forcing the Reserve Bank (Te Pūtea Matua) to pay banks a lower interest rate than the official cash rate they’re currently being paid. Cutting the interest rate would in effect be a type of bank tax. But the Government has appeared not to proceed with…
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