New Zealand Local Government Funding Agency is confident its latest Kangaroo deal demonstrates ongoing support for its name in Australian dollars, despite its recent loss of local repo eligibility. With four points now on its Australian dollar curve, the issuer says its new issuance focus will shift to building up line size rather than adding new benchmarks.

New Zealand Local Government Funding Agency is confident about its ongoing Australian dollar issuance prospects despite expressing disappointment at the Reserve Bank of Australia process that saw the issuer initially granted repo eligibility before having that status withdrawn. The issuer believes the outcome highlights anomalies in the expanded list of assets eligible for repo in Australia but will not take its claims further.

New Zealand is well ahead of the game when it comes to net zero transition in power generation, but many other sectors of its economy still have a long way to go to establish long-term sustainable foundations. Recent climate events, meanwhile, make it very clear that the time for delay has long passed. Speakers at the KangaNews-Westpac New Zealand Sustainable Finance Summit, which took place in Auckland in November, discussed the critical issues in the context of making sure the next step is action rather than fatigue.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand provided an update to its liquidity policy review on 5 December, with the banking system regulator now set to include level two liquid assets and a substantial committed liquidity facility in the forthcoming regime. The reserve bank has confirmed that securities issued by New Zealand Local Government Funding Agency and by “highly rated” Kauri borrowers will be included as level two liquid assets.