RBA starts three-year countdown to lift in interest rates

In line with expectations, the Reserve Bank of Australia has announced it will keep official interest rates on hold at 0.10%.

But is also ready to start tapering off its “unconventional” monetary policy measures introduced in response to the COVID-19 economic crisis.

These measures, designed to stimulate spending by keeping interest rates low for the next few years, have had two key components,

1) The “Yield Curve Control program” — involving the bank buying government bonds to keep interest rates at 0.1% for the next three years.

2) Quantitative Easing – involving the RBA buying long-term government bonds to help keep interest rates low over the five to ten years, but without a fixed goal for interest rates.

These measures will be wound back slowly.

Following the Reserve Bank board’s July meeting, at which these decisions were made, governor Philip Lowe said the Yield Curve Control program would end in April 2024 (the bank had been considering extending it to November 2024). The bond buying will continue but at a lower rate – at $4 billion a week rather than $5 billion.

A monetary policy dilemma

Heading into the meeting, the bank’s directors faced a dilemma. They knew the economy still required more support. Inflation remains below the target band. Unemployment is still too high. Lockdowns continue to periodically shutter large swathes of the economy.

Lowe has long promised the RBA won’t lift interest rates until inflation is back within its target band. He reiterated this today: “It will not increase the cash rate until actual inflation is sustainably within the 2-3% target range.”

It is not enough for inflation to be forecast in this range. The RBA wants to see results before it changes rates.

That still seems a long way off, with the central bank expecting the underlying inflation to be 1.5% over 2021, rising to 2% by mid-2023.

It maintains the key to getting wages and inflation higher is a stronger labour market. While unemployment is now at 5.1%, with underemployment also falling, that’s still a long way from “full employment”, which economists broadly agree is about 4.5-4.75%.