Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Feed Items

At its meeting today, the Payments System Board discussed a number of issues, including assessment of the New Payments Platform, the RBA’s work to operationalise the Financial Market Infrastructure regulatory reforms, central clearing of Australian bond and repo markets, the annual review of compliance with card payments regulation, improving the security of card transactions in the online environment and enhancing cross-border payments.

Speech by Christopher Kent, Assistant Governor (Financial Markets), at the Sir Leslie Melville Lecture, Canberra.

Assistant Governor (Financial System) Brad Jones discusses the Payments System Board’s strategic priorities, and financial stability.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) today published a consultation paper which seeks industry feedback on a new research initiative, Project Acacia.

At its meeting today, the Board decided to leave the cash rate target unchanged at 4.35 per cent and the interest rate paid on Exchange Settlement balances unchanged at 4.25 per cent.

Dr Meredith Beechey Österholm has been appointed to the new role of Head of Monetary Policy Strategy and Ms Nazmiye (Naz) Guler has been appointed Head of the Future Hub at the Reserve Bank of Australia.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and its central bank partners have successfully demonstrated with Project Mandala that regulatory compliance can be embedded in cross-border transaction protocols.

Speech by Sarah Hunter, Assistant Governor (Economic), Citi Australia and New Zealand Investment Conference.

This paper explores the formation of households' wage and inflation expectations using a common dataset and framework, documenting a number of stylised facts. We find that households tend to form wage and inflation expectations somewhat differently. Households associate higher wages growth with good economic outcomes, but higher inflation with worse economic outcomes. Wages expectations also tend to be somewhat more forward looking, while inflation expectations are more backward looking, especially for lower income households, and place a disproportionate weight on past fuel prices. These findings paint a picture of households having a somewhat 'supply-side' view of inflation, where shocks that push up inflation also weaken the economy, but a more 'demand-side' view of wages, where shocks that push up wages also strengthen the economy, which may make communication of monetary policy and the outlook more challenging.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is commencing its Review into Retail Payments Regulation.

The Bank today released the Reserve Bank Board’s Review of the Term Funding Facility.

Speech by Christopher Kent, Assistant Governor (Financial Markets).

Speech by Andrew Hauser, Deputy Governor, at the Business Journalism Awards.

Media release number 2024-19: The Reserve Bank of Australia today released the 2024 Assessment of the ASX Clearing and Settlement Facilities. This assesses the performance of the ASX CS Facilities against the Bank's Financial Stability Standards.

At its meeting today, the Board decided to leave the cash rate target unchanged at 4.35 per cent and the interest rate paid on Exchange Settlement balances unchanged at 4.25 per cent.

Occupational entry regulations (OER) are legal requirements that people need to meet to enter certain professions. They are intended to protect consumers by ensuring providers are of sufficient quality – but they can also create costs by making it harder for new workers to enter a profession or for new firms to open and grow. In this paper we construct a database of OER stringency across three states and a number of occupations to better understand these potential costs. We find that for services provided to consumers (businesses), OER tend to be more (less) stringent in Australia compared with the average OECD country. In most occupations OER are more stringent in Australia compared to the least stringent OECD country. We find that more stringent OER are associated with lower business entry and exit rates, and a slower flow of workers from less to more productive firms, both of which may have negative implications for productivity. We also find some tentative evidence that OER tend to be associated with skill shortages. These results do not necessarily suggest that OER should be less stringent. But they fill a gap in our understanding of the effects of OER, which can help policymakers going forward.

Speech by Brad Jones, Assistant Governor (Financial System), at the Intersekt Conference.