Reserve Bank keeps Official Cash Rate unchanged at 5.5%

  • 10/04/2024

The Reserve Bank has kept the Official Cash Rate at 5.5 percent.

Economists were predicting the OCR, which is updated seven times a year, would stay the same before Wednesday's announcement.

Kiwibank said the OCR would stay unchanged to beat inflation back to two percent.

Also, Westpac said it thought the Reserve Bank would be looking for more reassurance that inflation is slowing from the upcoming Consumer Price Index release on April 17.

The OCR has been on the rise since a low of 0.25 percent in September 2021, but has been held at 5.5 percent since May last year.

The OCR peaked at 8.25 percent in 2008.

Increasing the OCR increases interest rates and helps bring inflation down.

The latest NZIER survey of businesses shows slumping confidence with a quarter expecting the economy to worsen over the coming months.

The next OCR update will be on May 22.