Cabinet meets tomorrow to discuss the current Alert Level settings. While we wait on an update on Alert Levels, we suggest you consider the following (where applicable/relevant): 

  • Start planning for the possibility of Level 3 trading. If you turn your mind back to the 2 weeks beginning 27 April 2020, you will recall that Level 3 is still very much a lockdown, but contactless trading is allowed.
  • Update accounting records to support any Wage Subsidy and/or Resurgence Support Payment claims you might be considering.

Wage subsidy updates

Unhelpfully, the full criteria for the new wage subsidy, now called “Wage Subsidy August 2021” has still not been released. According to the MSD website, this information will be contained in the declaration which will be released when applications open tomorrow morning at 9:00am

Interest rates

Yesterday afternoon, the Reserve Bank released its regular monetary update. Economists were in consensus that the Reserve Bank was going to start increasing interest rates beginning with yesterday’s announcement. This Reserve Bank announcement made it clear that this Covid outbreak has delayed the increase in interest rates, so that they can wait to see the economic impact of this outbreak.

This is good news for borrowers, but not so great for savers.