Should Australia Follow Suit in Housing Sector

Is New Zealand’s macro-prudential mortgage tools an option for the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), The Guardian’s economics correspondent Greg Jericho writes. The RBA will be watching closely as New Zealand introduces innovative regulations designed to protect its banking system.

“This week New Zealand beat Australia on two measures. First, the same-sex marriage law came into effect; and second, its reserve bank introduced some ‘macro-prudential’ tools for its banking system,” Jericho says.

“There aren’t many buzzwords in financial policy circles, but for the past two or three years ‘macro-prudential tools’ has been the key phrase for many on how the financial system needs to respond to the global financial crisis.

“This week the New Zealand Reserve Bank announced that ‘from 1 October banks will be subject to restrictions on high loan-to-value ratio (LVR) housing mortgage loans’.

“The banks will ‘be required to restrict new residential mortgage lending at LVRs of over 80 per cent to no more than 10 per cent of the dollar value of their new housing lending flows’.”