Reserve Bank of New Zealand press conference — 28 October 2026

Transcript

Kia everyone welcome to the October monetary policy review. I'm Reserve Bank Governor Anna Breamman, chair of our monetary policy committee. Welcome to our Oakland office. I'm joined by fellow committee members Karen Silk and Paul Conway here on stage. Our other MPC members, Haley Gorley, Pasana Guy, Call Hansen, and Rebecca Williams are here in the front row. I would like to welcome Rebecca to her first media conference as an MPC member today. As usual, I'll share some slides and talk you through the MPC's decision and our assessment of the inflation outlook. We then look forward to answering your questions.

Today, the monetary policy committee voted to hold the OCR at 2.75%. The committee is focused on returning inflation to the 2% target midpoint over the medium-term while avoiding unnecessary economic instability. All committee members agreed on the inflation outlook, but members differed in how much weight they played on various risks around the medium-term inflation outlook and the timing of the monetary policy response. We all agreed that tighter monetary policy will most likely be required, but it is conditional on the economic outlook. Annual consumer price inflation was 3.7% in the September quarter, down from 4.1% in the in the June quarter and lower than expected. Encouragingly, the pass through of the initial surge in fuel prices to other price categories was weaker than we previously assumed. This suggests that inflation expectations remain well anchored and that firms have limited ability to pass on cost increases to households. Wage growth also remains subdued which reduces the need for firms to increase prices but and this is important underlying inflation remains elevated. Measures of core inflation increased to around the top of the committee's 1 to 3% target band as price increases have become more broad-based across the economy. Annual inflation is expected to increase to 4.4% in the December quarter largely because of current prices for for fuel futures. Let me stress that near-term inflation forecasts are uncertain given price volatility for oil and refined fuels. This graph illustrates exactly that. So fuel prices on global markets have been highly volatile and have risen uh further recently. This graph shows the high variability in spot price in black or Singapore petrol as well as the high volatility in future prices. So we showed you this last time. This is February, May, July, September and now October. So recently petrol prices have risen again because of ongoing disruptions in uh global energy markets and global markets as you can see here expect petrol prices to decline over the coming year but more slowly and

to a higher level than expected earlier in the year. Another thing we discussed is that the New Zealand exchange rate has declined approximately 3% since our September MPS. As you see in this graph, the exchange rate tends to vary considerably over time and exchange rates are notoriously difficult to forecast. So although global interest rates have increased, the decline is like the decline likely reflects a mix of factors in a highly uncertain environment. If sustained, a lower exchange rate could add to imported inflation and second round price effects through price and wage setting behavior. Exchange rates pass through depends on economic conditions and continuing weak demand could limit these effects. Of course, a lower exchange rates also improves exporters incomes and supports tourism and growth. So turning to growth, the New Zealand economy has continued to recover against a very challenging global backdrop. GDP growth was a little stronger than expected through the first half of this year and business surveys point to continued growth over the second half of this year. As highlighted in our September uh monetary policy statement, New Zealand's economic economic recovery remains uneven. As you can see from this chart, exports have been a key engine of the recovery supported by high commodity prices and robust demand in our trading partners. Strong growth is supporting business investments as firm respond to improved earnings and opportunities. indicators of business confidence have improved. Importantly, however, growth in exportoriented sectors and regions is not yet flowing into higher overall consumption and household spending. And that's what you can see in the pink line. Consumption was flat in the June quarter. Subdued employment growth, higher prices, and falling house prices continue to weigh on spending. and the savings rate is well above its 10-year average, suggesting households remain cautious. As this chart uh shows, house prices remain very subdued. This may be contributing to more cautious spending behavior. We expect household

consumption to be increasingly driven by income growth rather than wealth effects from stemming from the housing market. The pickup in household consumption is likely to be gradual. As well as strong export of goods, uh international visitor numbers have continued to increase and are now back around precoid levels and that's what you can see in this graph. They're supported in part by the lower exchange rate that is boosting tourism related services industries that employ many New Zealanders. So that's a little bit on the positive side. So on the risks, the global economy has been resilient, but risks remain elevated. Geopolitical tensions, high energy prices, elevated government debt, and tighter financial conditions all pose risk to growth. The AI investment boom is creating opportunities, but also increasing the risk of a market correction. In New Zealand, the economy could have more momentum than we expect or export strength may not flow through to the wider economy. So monetary policy will remain robust to these risks. If domestic inflation pressures prove more persistent, further tightening will be needed even into restrictive territory. In summary,

the committee voted to hold the OCR at 2.75%. Inflation remains elevated and it will rise further in the near term largely because of higher global fuel prices. But the initial pass through of higher fuel prices has been less than assumed and price and weight shedding behavior remains consistent with inflating inflation returning to target. The economy is recovering but conditions remain uneven and risk remains elevated. The committee is determined to get inflation back to the 2% target midpoint. tighter monetary policy is likely but it is conditional on the outlook. So we will soon open up for questions but before um we do that I have another um information I'd like to share and that is about financial scams. So financial scams are becoming more convincing both here and overseas. Scammers are using images of public figures, including mine, to promote fake investments. They sometimes pretend to be trusted news organizations using familiar websites and logos. AI makes these scams easy to create. H and unfortunately, it's hard to get them taken down. So, to protect yourself, pause before you click on these links. Don't share personal information and check official sources like our website. The Reserve Bank never offers investment advice to the public. If you see something claiming we do offer investment advice, don't click. So being aware is our best line of defense. That's why I wanted uh to raise this today because we seeing it happen unfortunately in New Zealand as well. So with that said, before we open up to question, I'd like to thank staff for their incredible work they do every time ahead of each decision that we make. And with that said, we're now happy to take your questions.

>> Hello. Thank you very much. Um, Governor Jason WS from One News here. Um, as first part of the question, I was wondering if you just might be able to describe for the layman, somebody that might not understand in technical terms what tighter monetary policy is likely to be required actually means um for them. >> It means that we think it's likely that we will do further OCR increases at coming meetings. >> Yeah. And in terms of the market pricing today, it was at about 95% I think about people thinking that the the Reserve Bank would be hiking to about 3%. How much of that was in your thinking and the committee's thinking when you were making the decision today? >> Yeah, so the decisions are always based on the outlook for inflation and the New Zealand economy. So when we go into these meeting, we have a very robust process when we look at the latest data, the outlook for inflation. We discuss that we look at market pricing, we look at financial conditions, but we do the decision based on how we see the economy and inflation evolving over the coming months to ensure that we get inflation back to target. >> So that wasn't part of your consideration. You weren't worried. >> It was very much something that we looked at. We always look at market pricing. uh we look at financial conditions and that means how it affects um the economy. Uh we look at wholesale interest rates. We look at the mortgage interest rates. We look at deposit rates. Um we do look at market price and expectations. But we do have to make the decision based on our view of where inflation is heading and how we ensure that we can bring inflation back to target over the medium term without causing unnecessary volatility and output.

C Governor Zane Small from Stuff and Three News. >> The inflation rate at 3.7% is well above target. So how can you justify not uh lifting the cash rate today? >> So the main reason is that we see uh that the condition to bring inflation back to target are still favorable. So when we look very deeply at this number, 3.7% is far too high, but it was actually lower than we expected. So what we were seeing is that the higher fuel prices hasn't caused the indirect effects onto other price categories to the same extent as we expected. And in addition, inflation expectations have remained well anchored. Wage growth is actually below what we think is consistent with returning inflation to target. Um and um uh we also know that having done two uh OCR increases very recently that will have some effect as well. So all of these conditions uh were important for us but we still are saying that we think it's likely uh that we'll need to do further OCR increases at the coming meetings. >> Thank you. And just a follow-up question. I note that it was a split vote. Was it a difficult decision for you? >> Well, this is a tough decision. I mean the global environment, we have a lot of volatility in financial markets. We get a lot of new information all the time. Uh but we have a very robust process for making these decisions. We get good information uh about all the new information that's happened, the outcome of the data. Uh the committee discusses this. We anonymously provide some written advice on how we see the outlook for inflation and the New Zealand economy and then we discuss that and we listen to our MPC colleagues and then we reflect upon it and take in all of that information before we make a decision. Everyone is fully committed to bringing inflation back to target over the medium term. >> Uh Lucy Kramer from Reuters. Um I just want to go back to that market pricing. >> Um the markets were obviously completely out of step with what you guys have done. You're a central bank that has really pushed the fact that you want to be transparent, be talking to them. Could you have done more before the meeting to kind of have flag where you were thinking?

>> I think one of the important things here and that is true. The one of the reasons for transparency is for market to understand our reaction function. And if you look at the record of the meetings, we have quite a lot of discussions about different possibilities going forward. Um but we got the inflation data for the September quarter on Thursday which is when we were what we call in blackout which is when we don't communicate and we looked really carefully at all this data and at the inflation outlook and I think that that was the timing was a bit unfortunate that uh markets didn't couldn't adjust and see how we read that data before this meeting. So can you in future have a better timetable around when inflation data and when central bank meetings? >> We can always try but I you know having done this for a number of years unfortunately sometimes you'll land up in these kind of positions but next year we will get monthly uh inflation data and that will be very welcome. We're hoping to have it by the middle of 27. >> Um and secondly you talked about Kiwi dollar weakness. The dollar has dropped about 1% since this decision. How are you feeling now? Well, so we are concerned uh about the fact that if we see that the New Zealand dollar continues to be weak, that could have an impact on inflation, imported inflation going forward. We know that shortrun volatility in the exchange rate doesn't take tend to have a large impact. It will affect some prices directly like the fuel prices but not overall. Uh so we are watching this but we have an inflation mandate. So we do look very carefully at the exchange rate and we also had it on our presentation slide but our concern is how it will impact growth and inflation uh over the medium term.

>> Um hi Alice Summers from interest.co here. Um was the timing of the New Zealand election next week a consideration in a decision? we focus on our mandate and bringing inflation back uh to target over the medium term. So since I took office, I've been very careful in emphasizing how much the committee discusses the economic outlook and the conditions for reaching our mandate and that's the whole committee is focused on making that happen. >> Perfect. Um just to follow up, Karen, Haley, and Paul, the three of you favored increasing the OCR by 25 basis points. Um, did any of you want to hold the OCR at 2.75% before coming to that decision? >> Um, I obviously make the decision uh as we proceed through that meeting and on receipt of a full suite of information. So uh no, I I did not come into the meeting uh having a predetermined view on whether I would be increasing voting to increase or uh to hold

Thank you very much. Just to follow up on the election question, and I'm sure you were um anticipating a bunch of these, but was there ever any conversations, any sort of lobbying, anything at all to do with the Reserve Bank with the finance minister ahead of this decision? >> No. >> And so it had absolutely no bearing on your decision or the committee's decision? >> No.

K governor Berni for the kaka. Um >> there's mentioned in the statement about um perhaps weaken expected employment markets and the potential that the export recovery doesn't necessarily spill through into the rest of the economy. Why do you think that is possible? No, we see that the exporting sector performing well is very good for the New Zealand economy currently. Growth would be considerably weaker and is contributing to employment uh in New Zealand currently. So, it's a positive thing that we have strong export growth. What we're saying is that we haven't seen strong spillovers to demand in other sectors yet. But this is something where we are looking out and we are both saying that you know the momentum might actually be a little bit stronger than we expect but we're also seeing some weaknesses and we know when we discuss those a little bit one of them is that house prices are still you know sidelining. They're not really well there's lots of regional differences and we highlighted that in our last press conference but that's one of the reason the wealth effects that we usually get from the housing markets are relatively weak. We are seeing some employment growth and that encouraging but we also don't see a strong fall in unemployment yet and that's also affecting demand from households and we also think that the global uncertainties that we all are facing makes households cautious at this stage and that's why we highlight that the savings rate it's is a little bit it's actually above its 10-year average. So we're seeing these fac factors as being important and we're continue to monitor that going forward. Do you think that um your forecasting of employment and wages and the wealth effect may be underestimating um how important the wealth effect is on consumption and also the effect on employment and wages because consistently for a few years now not just the Reserve Bank but also Treasury have underestimated ated how weak the employment market is and also how weak household consumption is. So we are continuously looking at uh all factors that affects uh the economic growth in New Zealand whether it's employment household consumption we try to take into consideration if there are

structural changes so that is also in the record of the meeting we're talking about whether we will see uh household consumption being more led which we expect by income growth rather than the wealth effect from the housing sector. We also know that there are some rebalancing across the uh the country. People moving from for example from North Island to the south island. We discussed it at the last time. So I would just say that we continuously try to improve the way we do forecasting and we try to be very open about the risks that we see uh and how we assess those risks going forward. Just funny, there's a mention in the statement about the potential for abrupt changes globally and that um some of them could even lead to an easing of policy. Uh what what sort of changes are you talking about and in particular in the next six weeks where it was mentioned there was some events and data that some of the members wanted to see before. >> What? Yeah. Now this is an important question and in the committee discussed risk to the global outlook. We've actually seen a lot of resilience in the global economy. We know it's related to high AI in a artificial intelligence investments in many countries and in New Zealand trading partners. But there's also a discussion on whether this is sustainable. uh and we discussed like you see many others discussing is there a risk for a market correction and what would be the implications of that. We see high debt levels. We've seen bond deals going up both when it comes to government bond deals in many countries and private debt markets is something that where we see vulnerabilities. So what we're highlighting is that we're seeing a resilient yet fragile uh global outlook. It's something that Prasana Guy has been talking about uh for quite some time and we thought it was important uh to highlight in the record of the meeting that we're seeing this. We're still seeing resilience which is a good thing but there is fragility as well and we're just monitoring these things to see whether they may affect but it's in the risks it's not the main scenario. >> Thank you Governor. We'll now move to some of the media that have joined uh this call online. Uh we'll take a few

questions from those online and then we'll return to those in the room. Uh the first question is with Jana Tipini from the New Zealand Herald. >> Good day, Governor. Um I just note that the 2-year swap rate is down by 14 basis points and that demand for mortgages subdued and people are nervous. So they're already um saving quite a bit as you as you say in your statement. Do you think um these these factors combine and create a situation whereby people might expect mortgage and term deposit rates to actually fall a little bit following today's decision? We don't uh we haven't really discussed whether we would expect to see rates falling. uh we do expect that it's likely that we actually will see further OCR increases because of what we're seeing in inflation and in line what we communicated at our last decision. So the OCR policy rate path that we have indicates that it's likely to see further OCR increases over coming meetings and the committee discussed that they may even be higher than we said at the September meeting. But it's also the fact that we have done two OCR increases at the two previous meetings and that allows us a bit of time to assess all the new information that we we received since those meetings. >> I guess markets are are surprised by today's decision. So is there a risk that uh you know those in the in the near term those term deposit and mortgage rates might actually drop back a bit? I I know they haven't really gone up much and at the last meeting we discussed how you know term deposit rates were kind of staying pretty low and they haven't actually moved much since then. Does today's decision just add to that sort of downward pressure? In the record of the meetings, we do um have a discussion on what we call financial conditions, which is what you're discussing, and what is impacting them right now. And one of the things we're seeing is that, you know, households are uh saving and credit growth has been relatively weak. And that means that even though we've seen a rather substantial increase in wholesale interest rate, that hasn't fully flown onto uh mortgage rates or deposit rates for that matter. So we do follow these things very carefully but we still assess that the most likely is further increases in the OCR uh going forward.

>> Thanks. We'll now move to Ansley Thompson from Bloomberg. >> Hello. Uh just returning to Bernard's question about the global risks in the um the statement of record. Um it me it does mention the six weeks. Is there something in particular you're looking out for in the next six weeks that will indicate greater risk to the global economy? >> We are always looking at all the data between all the meetings that we have. Uh currently I would say that data that is important to us is of course what we'll see in the the partial information we get of on inflation over the coming months. So we have what we call the spy which is part of the consumption basket in the CPI and that's really important to see how those indirect effects that I was talking about uh might evolve. We also look very carefully at inflation expectations because we know that when fuel prices go up sometimes that fits into shortrun inflation expectations. We saw that food prices was actually that's another thing that tend to influence inflation expectations but they were a little bit weaker than expected. We will get important data on the labor market very soon for New Zealand. So we keep on looking at that and then we keep on looking at what's happening in the global economy and how that impacts New Zealand as well. >> Okay. And are you concerned about a possible return to a dual mandate or do you have any thoughts on that? I've said before and I'll say the same thing again that you know we focus on the mandate that we have which is bringing inflation back to target over the medium term while avoiding unnecessary instability and output. U it's for elected officials and the parliament to decide on that mandate. >> Thank you. We'll now head to Tom Pistreer from the post. >> Uh good good afternoon governor. I've noted u noted your comments on this broad topic um that you've made already but can I check was there any discussion within the committee about the optics or perception risk of um making what what has obviously been quite a surprise uh decision so close to the election >> the committee will continue to focus on bringing inflation to the midpoint of the target band over the medium term. term while avoiding unnecessary

instability and output. That's our mandate and that's what we're really focused on and everyone is equally committed and you see that we agree on the inflation outlook. We agree uh that it's likely that we'll see further OCR increases and that's where the committee will continue to be. We will continue to carefully read all the economic data and how it impacts our ability and we will bring inflation back to targets because that's what we're set here to do. >> Uh thank you. But that wasn't really my question. My question was whether there was any discussion of the per any perception issues around the decision. You know was there any decision that there might be any concern or accusation of political bias? Was that a topic that was raised within the NPC during the dead? >> It was not something that was being discussed while we had our monetary policy deliberation. We were very focused on the economic outlook when we were doing these deliberations. >> Was it something that the committee members committee subsequently discussed? So these kind of questions come up when we do prep for the media, not when we discuss monetary policy and bringing inflation back to target. >> Okay. So there were some discussions when you're doing preparations for the media about um the the explanation for this decision that that that topic might come up and it was discussed then. What what what was the >> it's we're not surprised that you were asking us this question, but when we did our monetary policy deliberations, the focus were on New Zealand's economy and bringing inflation back to target. >> Final question we've got online at the moment is back with Jana Tipsy from the New Zealand Herald. >> Uh thank you. Uh, Governor, would you be comfortable if retail interest rates did either drop back a wee bit or if they stopped rising? And I'm talking about in the in the short term ahead of your next meeting. >> I do expect that we will see uh some changes in uh in in all of these factors because of what will happen and expectations of monetary policy. So I think the best way of answering that is that we are we will do what we need to do to ensure that inflation returns to

target and we think it's likely uh that that means further OCR increasing at further OCR increases at coming meetings but it is conditional on the economic outlook and then how markets interpret that uh that is for markets to do so we try to be consistent in our communication and in December we have a full forecast round. We'll have new forecast and new OCR path. Um yeah

>> um you talked about the fact that you might have to tighten into restrictive territory. Do you have any guidance on where restrictive ter where you're seeing restrictive ter I know that the neutral rate you said is quite wide at the moment. there in many scenar scenarios but any kind of guidance on what restrictive territory might be. >> So what uh we had a discussion and it's in the record of the meetings around the neutral rate. We say that it is uh we have a a wide range of estimates. We think that uh globally uh neutral interest rate might have gone up because we see a lot of investments uh globally that could push up um the neutral interest rates. We also know that that could change because we also see some fragilities that I mentioned and this is the discussion that we have in the record of the meetings. Um I I mentioned during the discussion I know it's not in the record of the meetings that we may uh need to go into restrictive territory. uh but we didn't discuss what that means but we have um we have a range and the thing that we really wanted to stress is that it is it's always uncertain where the neutral is and that's in the record of the meetings >> markets markets are still seeing the top at around 3.75 or more do you think that's a fair go relative to what you guys are thinking is that >> well what we had in the OCR path from last meeting is lower than that uh the committee had a discussion on whether it we may think that the OCR uh would need to go further. Uh but we will come back at the December meeting with a new set of forecast and a new OCR path. >> Governor, with the risk of you coming over and slapping me on the top of the head for another election question, um in terms of in in the past, members of parliament have talked about how fiscal and monetary policy need to be friends. When you look across the remit of the political parties, the policies that they've been announcing, how does that sit with you in terms of fiscal policy potentially being a little bit inflationary and do you have any concerns looking across the spectrum of what's been announced or proposed so far? >> So I'll answer in a technical manner because when it comes to fiscal policy,

we what we take into account in our forecasting are the decisions that have been made. So we don't speculate about potential fiscal policy and we didn't speculate about potential fiscal policy stance at this time around and at the next meeting we'll have an updated forecast for you with clarity uh and but we'll use the same methodology as we uh we always do. Do you want to add Karen? >> I was just just about to say maybe maybe we'll have clarity. >> Well again we don't do those kind of forecasts. to do the economic forecast. >> You know that we don't when you say there's going to be a government in December. But in in saying that though, do you have any message a message to politicians on the campaign trail right now when it comes to fiscal policy? >> I have no message. This fiscal policy is for elected officials. That's their core. Um that's their mandate and ours is um uh bringing inflation back to target. uh governor on this issue of the separation of the church and state with yourself being the head of the church and state being the government. >> That's that's your characterization. >> Yes, that's that's right. Um we have a statement from the finance minister 18 minutes after the official cash rate decision saying quote nationals disciplined spending and economic management has helped bring the OCR down from the 5 and a half% labor labor left behind firstly is that true and secondly um do you think politicians should be claiming credit for lower interest rates or taking the blame for higher interest rates? I think that my role is to comment on the inflation outlook and what the committee has been discussing and how we see that uh outlook and how we uh will deliver on our mandate. I think that's my role. Uh and that's the comment that I have uh on that. >> But if the finance minister is saying she's responsible for taking the official cash rate or at least partially responsible from 5 a half to 4.7 2.75%. Surely it's fair for us to ask is that true? Well, again, if you look at uh the way the Reserve Bank act is written and the remmit, it says that the monetary policy committee should bring inflation towards the midpoint of the target band

2% over the medium term while avoiding unnecessary volatility in output. And I'm repeating this because I said it a number of times today. But that's where the committee has a mandate. that's where we do our con, you know, deliberations and so it's not for us to comment on other things that are not within our mandate. I don't think it's appropriate. >> Um, hi Alice Summers from Interest again. Um, in the September MPS, the Reserve Bank noted limited pass through of higher wholesale rates to term deposit rates. Has this gotten better since September or are banks still passing rate rises through to borrowers faster than to savers? >> So, I will not answer exactly comparing the two, but we've seen a similar trend since then. I don't know Karen if you'd like to add something more in terms of the if there's been a smaller or or larger. What we've seen is continued savings and also relatively subdued credit demand. So it means that we've seen the pass through being partial in both the deposit rates and the mortgage rate. Would you like to add something? >> I I think actually you've explained that very well. Um and we've outlined it in the ROM. Uh the fact that the pass through to both deposit rates and uh mortgage rates in particular have been uh less than previously. But we're in a um we're in a a situation where banks are well funded. We have had higher deposit growth. Uh and uh we have a subdued credit demand environment and in that environment you would expect to see uh the see uh lower funding costs because of the fact that they have higher deposits uh meaning that there is less pass through into mortgage rates as well. And that is what we have seen uh since the September MPS. >> Okay. Thank you. Um just another question. Um earlier this year in March, Governor, you urged businesses to avoid raising prices unless necessary. Is this something you'd still advise businesses to do in the current environment? >> Yes. So what we've actually seen and that's why I stress this indirect effects. We see that there are cost pressures. It's really tough on many businesses, but it's also tough on many households. And what we've seen and that's why we're looking so careful at

how this higher fuel prices and shipping costs uh are flowing through onto other price categories and we see some of those indirect effects. They are happening but they've been smaller than expected and we don't really see any second round effects yet. So we don't really see inflation expectations you know going really high. We don't see wage growth going really high. So we don't see this price and wage spiral that means that inflation gets embedded in the economy. Uh and that are those are positive signs and that means that some firms and that's also what they're saying in the surveys. They're saying it it is difficult to pass on the cost increases onto households. And if they do that that means uh that inflation will not go as high as in the really bad scenarios. and then we're likely to need to increase the OCR less than if we saw a high pass through. And that's why we're looking so much into these details all the time because we can't stop higher fuel prices from just heading headline inflation, but we can stop it from causing the well to some extent the indirect and particularly the second round effects. And that's where we are so focused and that's why we go into all of these details to such a great extent.

We will just return to online questions now. We have uh Jana Tipsy from the New Zealand Herald. >> I'd just like to um return to my previous questions. I note um as as just discussed before today's decision, there wasn't a whole lot of upward pressure on mortgage and term deposit rates for the for the reasons discussed. Now today's decision comes as a surprise to the market uh and swap rates have fallen. So does that mean looking ahead uh that it's quite likely that mortgage and term deposit rates won't rise very much? >> Well again you know what we've seen over the the whole year since I've been at the Reserve Bank is that there's been a lot of things affecting both global uh market rates and then the domestic rates here. And what we do is that we monitor that. We look at what are the factors driving it and we uh focus on trying to communicate uh how we see the outlook for inflation New Zealand economy and what that means for the OCR. That's the OCR pass that we have. So know it's difficult for me to say this is exactly what will happen because there's so many factors influencing it beyond uh setting the OCR. That's always the case. Currently our forecast from the OCR and the last one we have is from September is that it's likely to see further OCR increases and the discussion has been uh at this meeting well it's likely to maybe be a bit more than what we said in September u but we will get more data and we have a full for full full forecast in December and a new OCR. So that's that's the the best information I can give you right now. It's just important to remember all the factors that influence market rates and then how that flows onto the retail rates that you're asking about.

So with that uh I'd like to thank you all uh for being here. Thanks to my MPC colleagues for really good discussions this time around and thanks again to staff for all your hard work. See you in December.

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