Business

The Tiwai Point aluminium smelter in Southland. Photo: ekays/123RF The Tiwai Point aluminium smelter has agreed to further reduce its energy use to help ease the country's supply constraints. The agreement with Meridian Energy would see the smelter reduce electricity consumption by another 20 megawatts (MW), with the energy made available to the national grid over a five-week period. The deal was separate to earlier demand response agreements signed with Meridian and Contact Energy. New Zealand Aluminium Smelter (NZAS), said it had taken off 185 MW of usage already and the additional 20 MW would help reduce pressure on the grid. Twenty MW would be enough to power all the homes in the city of Napier, NZAS said. New Zealand's electricity supply has come under immense strain in recent mont...

Finance Minister Nicola Willis has welcomed the Commerce Commission's report and recommendations into the banking sector, saying it confirmed what Kiwis had long suspected: "We are not getting a good deal from the big banks." Willis said the commission had conducted its work "fearlessly" and it's conclusions were robust. "It has provided actionable insights and our government is responding with urgency." She said the sector was dominated by four major players that made up 90 percent of the market. "They are highly profitable compared with international peers, they lack innovation and they do not aggressively compete for customers." No new banks had entered the market to challenge the status quo since Kiwibank was set up, Willis said. She was joining the commission to call out market behavi...

Photo: RNZ BNZ will no longer charge first-home buyers and other low-equity borrowers a higher interest rate. The bank said on Tuesday that as well as cutting home loan rates - its one-year rate is now 6.55 percent - it was moving to a single set of home loan fixed interest rates. Previously, it offered "standard" and" "classic" rates - classic rates were available to people who had more than 20 percent equity in their properties. BNZ said the classic rate had interest rates that were 60 basis points higher. Now, borrowers with less than 20 percent equity will be able to access standard rates, although they will still be charged a low-equity premium. This premium ranges 150bps for borrowers with deposit of less than 5 percent through to 35bps with those between 15 percent and 20 percent....

Photo: 123RF Many small businesses continue to resist the transition to digital payment systems despite growing demand from consumers. Research by global small business platform Xero indicates three quarters (75 percent) of consumers will use a physical bank card to pay in store, while one-in-seven (14 percent) will use their mobile phone. Only 8 percent of customers had cash available to pay in store, compared with nearly three quarters of small businesses (72 percent) who relied on cash to keep their business going. Xero country manager Bridget Snelling said only 17 percent of small businesses offered digital payment methods such as Apple Pay and Google Pay. "Aotearoa New Zealand has a long history of embracing innovative payment solutions, starting with the introduction of EFTPOS, whi...

File pic Photo: RNZ An Auckland fish trading company has been fined $360,000 and an employee jailed for buying and selling stolen fish. Sea World, which traded as Seamart and employee Marco Taukatelata, 49, were sentenced at the Auckland District Court on Friday on two charges under the Fisheries Act. Taukatelata was jailed for three years and seven months for his direct involvement in receiving and distributing thousands of dollars in illegally caught fish. A fisheries investigation found in the 11 months to November 2019, the company - a licensed fish receiver - supplied $348,000 worth of illegally obtained fish to other seafood companies. Over 97 cash transactions, there were 38,202 kilograms of snapper, 2761 kilos of kahawai and 1760 kilos of grey mullet taken - at a cash benefit to...

New research found that 37 percent of South Asian respondents use traditional banks for remittances. Photo: RNZ / 123rf The Commerce Commission has reaffirmed banking rules need to be eased, Kiwibank beefed up and open banking promoted to bring greater competition into personal banking services. The commission on Tuesday released its eagerly awaited final report into competition in the retail banking sector. Commission head John Small said stimulating competition in personal banking services requires a "multi-faceted approach to ensure that it's baked in." Small said open banking could be a game-changer, giving thousands of underserved Kiwis access to financial services and revolutionising consumer choice. The recommendations are little changed from the draft report in March and steer c...

Manapouri Power Station. Of the six big energy companies, Contact, Mercury and Meridian have usually had the largest margins. Photo: 123rf New data from the Electricity Authority shows the millions of dollars that electricity gentailers are making from what some commentators say is a broken market. The new dashboard indicates that the big six energy companies have consistently made more than $70 million in margins across the weeks for which data is displayed. The week before Associate Energy Minister Shane Jones accused the companies of "profiteering" as wholesale prices soared, they had a margin of $119m. Contact, Mercury and Meridian have usually had the largest margins. The authority said this would not include costs like staffing, maintenance, debt servicing and levies. Sarah Gillie...

Some retailers are not seeking to take on new customers due to adverse market conditions. Photo: 123RF High wholesale power prices are already reducing the deals that households can get on their electricity, a price comparison website says. Powerswitch said it had been advised both Comtricity and Raw Energy had stopped trading. In addition, it had been asked to remove offers from Octopus, Nova, Electric Kiwi and Flick Electric from the site. Independent retailers had been under pressure in recent months as wholesale power prices soared. In July, Electric Kiwi said it had to close to new customers because it could not afford to take them on. On 20 August last year, wholesale prices were as low as $77.53/MWh - on Monday they were more than $300. "These retailers' offers are temporarily no...

Photo: 123rf The number of job ads has ticked up for the first time in a year. The Seek Employment report for July indicates the number of ads increased 3 percent from June, but were still down 29 percent year-on-year. Applications per job ad were little changed from June's reading. Read more: Seek country manager Rob Clark said what had not changed was fierce competition among candidates - that showed "no sign of abating". "While it is pleasing to see an increase in job ad volumes, this comes after five months of consecutive declines, including an 8 percent fall in June," he said. Retail and consumer ads rose 24 percent, followed by hospitality and tourism up 20 percent, with government and defence up 22 percent. Consulting and strategy was the only sector to record a monthly fall in j...

Limited traffic on Auckland Harbour Bridge Photo: NZTA / Twitter Millions of dollars are blowing in the wind - that is the cost of weather-related restrictions on Auckland's Harbour Bridge, according to an economist. Gusty conditions on Monday meant the bridge was reduced to two lanes in each direction, and speed restrictions were in force. Speed limits kick in when winds hit 90 kilometres an hour; when gusts reached 110kmh, the bridge could close all together. In that situation, traffic has to take the long way around on the Western Ring Road via State Highway 16 and SH18. Infometrics principal economist Brad Olsen told Checkpoint the bridge closures were a significant cost to people. Read more: "We estimated ... based on the amount of time the bridge has been closed over the last co...