Loans to investors risky under new LVRs, Icebreaker’s ultimate challenge, Irresponsible politics and statistics

The Reserve Bank doesn’t appear to have considered its latest loan-to-valuation restrictions could have the opposite impact from its intended result, Jenny Ruth writes. The central bank wants to protect financial stability and prevent banks from making risky loans – but banks have to provide less capital, a key buffer on bad loans, against less risky mortgages.

Two years into the job as chief executive of clothing company Icebreaker, Rob Fyfe is getting his head around one of the most difficult problems for Kiwi exporters. Icebreaker’s whole identity is based on its New Zealand origins, so how can it get closer to its customers overseas without losing that special point of difference? In a wide-ranging interview with Tim Hunter, Mr Fyfe talks about private equity investment, getting retail right, and what he learned from Michael Hill.

“We should always prepare for the unexpected and not rule out the unthinkable:”That’s according to Capital Economics chief New Zealand and Australia economist Paul Dales who is among an increasing number of economists starting to talk about “unconventional monetary policy” in Australasia, Jason Walls writes. But what could this look like and is it even a possibility?

One of the bedrocks of government is independent provision of economic and other statistics.

Labour’s front bench chose to rip into that bedrock this week, accusing Statistics New Zealand of “massaging” figures for the government. Rob Hosking explains what happened – and tells off the Labour MPs who did it – Grant Robertson, Jacinda Ardern and David Cunliffe.

Spark, TVNZ, TrustPower, 2degrees and others have lined up to tell the Commerce Commission why they think the Sky TV-Vodafone merger should be blocked.

But a top competition lawyer tells Chris Keall their arguments are too heavy on describing their various problems with Sky TV today – particularly it’s lock on rights to top sports – and too light on explaining how the merger would lessen competition to the detriment of consumers.

All this and more in today's NBR Print Edition. Out now.