Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard kept the official cash rate at a record-low 2.5% as expected, and said the gradual recovery in the economy was in line with expectations and gave him breathing space to stick to his timeline of a mid-year rate hike.

UPDATED: Marchmont Securities Trust, which is offering investors in Strategic Finance as little as 10 cents in the dollar for the debenture stock, is refusing to divulge any details about itself and has stalled on answering questions about the offer.

NZ Funds Management, which engineered a buyout of  Money Managers in 2008, is cautiously optimistic about 2010 after the firm's profit slumped by a third last year.

Marac Finance has unveiled its non-guaranteed deposits, which offer a strong premium for existing customers to switch over.

PGG Wrightson Finance, the finance unit of listed rural services company PGG Wrightson, expects the company's to improve through 2010 after a rough couple of years in the financial sector.

The government is set to claw back some $33 million in the first distribution following the failure of Macot Finance, the Timaru-based finance company that is one of two entities to call on the government’s retail deposit guarantee, according to the latest receivers’ update.

New Zealand house prices edged up in December as the property market continued to recover from its trough last year, though activity was at a "concerning" low level.

PGG Wrightson loses ground; Govt payout on Strata Finance still unclear.

The pace of residential home-building continues to pick up, although few new apartments are being built and non-residential construction is down across most sectors, according to November 2009 building consent totals released this morning by Statistics New Zealand.

UPDATED: First NZ Capital has helped with the establishment of a new funds management firm, however isn't planning to use it to manage its own funds.

Fidelity Life has paid out some $10.9 million in interest payments to about 1,400 investors after it suspended payments last year due to the global credit crunch.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s will retain its ‘wait and see’ attitude around South Canterbury Finance as the finance company undergoes an overhaul with Timaru-millionaire Allan Hubbard’s Southbury Group.

Strategic Finance's chief executive Kerry Finnigan has wound back the amount of hours he is devoting to recovering loans for the business as the board reviews his contract a year on from the moratorium in December 2008.

House values rose 2.8% last year after they hit a bottom in April, and steadily improved from there, according to QV Valuations.

In the lead-up to the holiday period, receivers PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte gave investors updates on the state of a handful of failed finance companies - though not all of them gave cause for Christmas cheer.

Failed finance company Bridgecorp receivers have all but given up hope of clawing back any money for investors from the ill-fated Momi resort development in Fiji.