Following arguably the most tumultuous year in the Reserve Bank's (RBA) history, the last Board meeting of the year is likely to be the least interesting, as any change to monetary policy seems extraordinarily unlikely.
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NAB economist Ray Attrill said today's RBA meeting would be somewhat of a non-event.
"The RBA’s last meeting of the year should pass without incident unless the post-meeting Statement chooses to offer some guidance on the likely fate of its QE bond buying programme beyond its currently scheduled June 2021 expiry (unlikely)," Mr Attrill said.
After reducing the cash rate to 0.10% from 0.25% in November, the RBA has stated the cash rate is at its effective lower bound and can go no further.
Very few lenders passed on the RBA's November cut to variable rates, with many instead offering sub-2% fixed rates, causing RBA Governor Phillip Lowe to urge borrowers to switch lenders if this was the case.
[See if your your lender passed on the November rate here.]
The central bank has also repeatedly affirmed it has no appetite for negative interest rates.
"Members agreed that, with the cash rate target at 10 basis points and the interest rate on Exchange Settlement balances at zero, interest rates would have been lowered as far as it made sense to do so in the current environment," the RBA said in the Minutes of its November Meeting.
"They considered that there was little to be gained from short-term interest rates moving into negative territory and continued to view a negative policy rate as extraordinarily unlikely."
The RBA has also stated it will not raise the cash rate until inflation sits in its desired band of 2-3% and progress towards full employment is made.
Australia's unemployment rate is currently at 7.0% and is expected to spike around 8% in December, with annual inflation sitting at 0.7%.
Consequently, the RBA doesn't expect to raise the cash rate for at least three years.
Since June of last year, the RBA has cut the cash rate by 135 basis points, taking it to a record low.
With the cash rate seemingly at the end of its tether, attention may now turn to the RBA's Term Funding Facility and its quantitative easing (QE) program.
With a less protracted recovery forecast by many economists, there has been speculation the RBA will wind back its QE program.
The RBA won't meet again after today until February.
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