Aurelia Butler

The RBNZ had announced in September last year that it was seeking input from the public on the potential use of a CBDC – which is the digital form of an existing currency.Several countries are exploring the use of CBDCs, with the U.S. Federal Reserve releasing a much-anticipated paper on the pros and cons of adopting a digital dollar earlier this year. The RBNZ said feedback from the public had helped affirm the importance of privacy and autonomy when it comes to a CBDC and that this would be a focus of further policy work. “Our view is that CBDC and cash would be complementary, rather than conflicting,” the central bank said in a statement.Ian Woolford, the RBNZ’s director of Money and Cash, added that the central bank was particularly focused on progressing concrete steps to improve resilience and efficiency in the cash system. More

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The New York City Council voted on Thursday to delay its new pay transparency law by six months to Nov. 1, when employers will be required to include salary ranges in job advertisements.The law, passed in January, is intended to close wage gaps in which women and non-white employees are paid less than white men. Some businesses had argued the city needed more time to advise more than 200,000 businesses affected by the law about compliance and to address unintended consequences.”Salary transparency is incredibly critical in ensuring that we are closing the wage gap,” Council Member Nantasha Williams said in a statement about amendments to the law including the delay.In 2019, the most recent year for which data is available, the median earnings in New York State for men working full-time was $60,813, nearly $9,000 more than the median earnings for women of $51,922. A 2021 study of New York City municipal employees found that the median white employee’s salary was $27,800 higher than a Black employee’s salary and $22,200 higher than a Latino employee’s salary.The city’s five chambers of commerce said local businesses supported the goals of the law but called for more time before enforcement began.Some business leaders said in an open letter the law may make it harder for small businesses owned by women and members of minority groups to attract talented candidates if wealthier employers could outbid them after seeing their salary offer.”As a woman, yeah, I want to be paid the same as a man,” Lisa Sorin, president of the Bronx Chamber of Commerce, said in an interview. “But will you limit the (pool of) potential candidates if I can’t pay as much as somebody else?” The law is similar to state transparency laws in California and Colorado. New York City’s amended law applies to employers with four or more employees and to both hourly wage earners and workers on annual salaries, so long as the job is performed at least partly in the city. The council rejected business leaders’ efforts to exclude many smaller employers. More

European shares rose on Friday after Chinese authorities pledged to safeguard the world’s second-largest economy from coronavirus shutdowns, lifting sentiment after disappointing updates from Apple and Amazon. The regional Stoxx 600 share index added 0.8 per cent in early dealings while London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.4 per cent and Germany’s Xetra Dax advanced 0.8 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index climbed 3.2 per cent and Japan’s Nikkei 225 equity gauge moved 1.8 per cent higher. Those gains came after a statement from China’s politburo, the Communist party’s decision-making body, promised to “strengthen macro adjustments” and “achieve full-year economic and social development goals”. Meanwhile, as the quarterly earnings season approaches the halfway stage in Europe, nearly 75 per cent of companies have beaten profit expectations, according to Barclays. The Stoxx is on track this month to beat the performance of US indices, which have been dragged sharply lower by expectations of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates. Frankfurt-listed shares of Amazon and Apple were down 8 per cent and 1.8 per cent on Friday.Apple warned on Thursday after US markets closed that it could take a hit of up to $8bn in the quarter to June from supply chain shortages and factory shutdowns in China. Amazon reported its slowest quarterly revenue growth. Futures trading implied the benchmark S&P 500 share index would open 0.5 per cent lower in New York, as it heads towards a more than 5 per cent loss for the month. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite is on track to fall more than 9 per cent in April, in what would be its worst monthly performance since March 2020.The dollar index fell 0.4 per cent after the gauge, which measures the currency against six others, hit a 20-year high on Thursday. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury note, a benchmark for debt costs worldwide, edged 0.02 percentage points lower on Friday but remained around its highest level since the end of 2018.Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, added 0.8 per cent to $108.45 a barrel and US marker West Texas Intermediate rose 0.5 per cent to hit $105.86. More