Author: Jasper Watson
Date: 2025-10-28

# Overview of the RBNZ Package

#### Jasper Watson

#### 2025-10-28

# RBNZ

This package provides a convenient way of accessing the financial and economic data published by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) on their website, https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/statistics. The data is provided in .xlsx files; this package will download those files and read them into R. A summary of the available data can be found at the end of this document.

The author has no affiliation with the RBNZ. The copyright for the data can be found at https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/about-our-site/terms-of-use.

## Usage

The function for downloading the data is `getSeries`. This takes as its first argument the name of the series and will return a list containing the fields “meta” and “data” which are data frames containing the metadata and actual data, respectively. Each column of the “data” data frame corresponds to a row of the “meta” data frame (except the first which is “Date”).

    library(RBNZ)

    ## Not evaluated in this vignette.
    b1 <- getSeries("B1")

    plot(b1$data$Date, b1$data$UK_pound_sterling, type = "l")

Some of the datasets have different available formats. For example the B1 series contains exchange rate data in both daily and monthly form. The second argument of `getSeries` allows the user to specify which option they want, e.g. `getSeries('B1', 'monthly')`.

Each series has a help file so typing, for example, `?B1`, will tell you what options, if any, are available.

To speed things up the files can be saved on disk so that they don’t have to always be re-downloaded even when there are no available updates. This is controlled by the `destDir` argument to `getSeries`, which can also be specified in your .Rprofile using `options(RBNZ.destDir = "path/to/stored/files")`.

By default, where a series has multiple files for a given option, only the most recent will be downloaded if `destDir` is provided and the files already exist. This is controlled by the `reloadOnlyLatest` argument to `getSeries`.

For a full description of the arguments of `getSeries`, see the package manual or function header.

### Cloudflare

The RBNZ website is now behind Cloudflare so there are some initial steps the user must take.

One option is to email the RBNZ and request that your (static) public IP address be whitelisted. The email to contact is listed on their terms of service page here.

The second option is to download the necessary files from the RBNZ website manually through your browser and then use this package to read and organise those files. This can be done by downloading the spreadsheets needed and saving them in a given directory without changing their file names. This could be done from the individual series page or from the summary page.

For example for the B1 series a user could download through their browser the following spreadsheets:

- hb1-daily-1973-1998.xlsx
- hb1-daily-1999-2017.xlsx
- hb1-daily.xlsx

They could then load the data as follows:

    library(RBNZ)

    dat <- getSeries('B1', destDir = 'path_to_downloaded_files', cacheOnly = TRUE)

The monthly option can be used after downloading hb1-monthly.xlsx and hb1-monthly-1973-1998.xlsx.

This option is not ideal as the spreadsheets need to be manually downloaded every time you want them updated but for users who don’t have a permanent public IP address they can get whitelisted this is the best that can be done.

## Non-standard Data

The majority of the datasets available are all stored in a similar format, with data organised by date and a standard set of metadata. There are a few series that do not follow this template, as indicated in the next section, and for these the spreadsheets are just downloaded and read into a list of data frames, one for each sheet, with some basic attempts at cleaning up dates, column headers, and so on.

## Available Data

    #>  Series Standard_Format                                        Description
    #>      B1                            Exchange rates and Trade Weighted Index
    #>      B2                                           Wholesale interest rates
    #>      B3                      Retail interest rates on lending and deposits
    #>      B4                      Foreign exchange turnover ($m daily averages)
    #>      B6                                                    Yields on loans
    #>      B7                                                  Costs of Deposits
    #>     B10                                                        TWI weights
    #>     B13                                             Historical TWI weights
    #>     B20                   New residential mortgage standard interest rates
    #>     B21                    New residential mortgage special interest rates
    #>     B25                 New interest bearing call savings account inter...
    #>     B26                   New interest bearing term deposit interest rates
    #>     B27                 New interest bearing term PIE deposits interest...
    #>     B30                 New residential mortgage weighted average inter...
    #>      C5                 Sector lending (registered banks and non-bank l...
    #>     C12                                               Credit card balances
    #>     C13                                               Credit card spending
    #>     C21                            Key household financial statistics ($m)
    #>     C22                                       Household balance sheet ($m)
    #>     C30                 New residential mortgage lending by loan-to-val...
    #>     C31                  New residential mortgage lending by borrower type
    #>     C32                 New and Existing Residential Mortgage Lending b...
    #>     C33                        New Residential Mortgage Lending by Purpose
    #>     C35                           Residential mortgage loan reconciliation
    #>     C40                 Residential mortgage lending by debt-to-income ...
    #>     C41                   Residential mortgage borrower gross income (BGI)
    #>     C50                 Money and credit aggregates (depository corpora...
    #>     C51                  Other depository corporations analytical accounts
    #>     C52                        Depository corporations analytical accounts
    #>     C55                   Other financial corporations analytical accounts
    #>     C60                                           Credit conditions survey
    #>     C65                                        Bank Customer Lending flows
    #>     C66                                       Bank Customer Lending stocks
    #>     C70                                             New Lending by Purpose
    #>     C71                  New lending fully secured by residential mortgage
    #>      D3               X                             Open market operations
    #>      D9                                           Government bond turnover
    #>     D10               X                      Influences on settlement cash
    #>     D12               X                                Standing facilities
    #>     D30                 Holdings of central government debt securities ...
    #>     D31                 Non-resident holdings of individual bonds (nomi...
    #>     D35                            Holdings of Kauri bonds (nominal value)
    #>      E1               X           New Zealand's official overseas reserves
    #>      E2                                New Zealand's position with the IMF
    #>      F3               X              Bank notes in the hands of the public
    #>      F4               X                                      Coin mintings
    #>      F5               X Reserve Bank foreign currency assets and liabil...
    #>      H1                                   Household Inflation Expectations
    #>      H2                                             Housing and Employment
    #>      H3                                                           Cash Use
    #>     J10                                        Insurance: Income Statement
    #>     J20                                           Insurance: Balance Sheet
    #>      L1                                                    Mismatch ratios
    #>      L2                                                 Core funding ratio
    #>      L3                    Face value of funding by residual maturity ($m)
    #>      M1                                                             Prices
    #>      M2                                                        Consumption
    #>      M3                                                         Investment
    #>      M4                                                     Domestic trade
    #>      M5                                             Gross Domestic Product
    #>      M6                                 National saving (year ended March)
    #>      M7                 Balance of Payments and International Investmen...
    #>      M8                                                     Overseas trade
    #>      M9                                                      Labour market
    #>     M10                                                            Housing
    #>     M12                                           Population and migration
    #>     M14                                             Survey of expectations
    #>     M15                                       Business Expectations Survey
    #>      R1                                    Reserve Bank balance sheet ($m)
    #>      R2                        Reserve Bank statistical balance sheet ($m)
    #>      R3                              Reserve Bank analytical accounts ($m)
    #>     S10                                          Banks: Balance sheet ($m)
    #>     S20                 Banks: Summary income statement and related ratios
    #>     S21                                       Banks: Income statement ($m)
    #>     S30                                    Banks: Assets - Loans by sector
    #>     S31                              Banks: Assets - Loans by purpose ($m)
    #>     S32                              Banks: Assets - Loans by product ($m)
    #>     S33                 Banks: Assets - Loans fully secured by resident...
    #>     S34                   Banks: Assets - Loans and Repos by Industry ($m)
    #>     S35                             Banks: Assets - Loans by Business Size
    #>     S36                                   Banks: Assets - Loans by Product
    #>     S37                       Banks: Assets - Agriculture Loans by Product
    #>     S40                       Banks: Liabilities - Deposits by sector ($m)
    #>     S41                     Banks: Liabilities - Deposits by industry ($m)
    #>     S42                         Banks: Liabilities - Deposits by repricing
    #>     S45                      Banks: Liabilities - Deposits by size (value)
    #>     S46                     Banks: Liabilities - Deposits by size (number)
    #>     S50                             Banks: Assets - Loans by Asset Quality
    #>     S51                    Banks: Assets - Business Loans by Asset Quality
    #>    SDDS               X NZ's international reserves and foreign currenc...
    #>      T1                                      Non banks: Balance sheet ($m)
    #>      T4                       Non banks: Funding and claims by sector ($m)
    #>     T11                           Savings institutions: Balance sheet ($m)
    #>     T21                 Deposit taking finance companies: Balance sheet...
    #>     T31                 Non-deposit taking finance companies: Balance s...
    #>     T40                                        Funds under management ($m)
    #>     T41                                           Managed fund assets ($m)
    #>     T42                                                Life insurance ($m)
    #>     T43                                                     KiwiSaver ($m)
    #>     T44                               Other registered superannuation ($m)
    #>     T45                                            Retail unit trusts ($m)
    #>     T46                                        Cash management trusts ($m)
    #>     T47                                              Wholesale trusts ($m)
    #>     T48                              Wholesale trusts and other funds ($m)

# Development Notes

When I first wrote this the website was structured differently and didn’t have a data file summary page like it does now. As as result the list of available series was hard-coded into the package. That could be fixed to always get an up to date listing now except that due to the Cloudflare issues mentioned earlier, many users wouldn’t be able to access that functionality. As a result the package still uses the hard coded list of series and I haven’t rewritten it to use the data summary page, hence it might sometimes be out of date if I am behind on updates for any new series.