About Monetary Policy

What is Monetary Policy?

The Reserve Bank of Australia is responsible for formulating and implementing monetary policy. The Reserve Bank sets the target ‘cash rate’, which is the market interest rate on overnight funds. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020, the Reserve Bank put in place a comprehensive set of monetary policy measures to lower funding costs and support the supply of credit to the economy. These included lowering the cash rate, setting a target for the yield on the 3-year Australian Government bond (discontinued in November 2021), purchasing a nominated amount of government bonds with residual maturity of around 5 to 10 years (discontinued in February 2022) and providing a term funding facility for the banking system (closed to new drawdowns in June 2021). These measures supported the economy through the normal transmission mechanisms of monetary policy, including lower borrowing costs, a lower exchange rate than otherwise and higher asset prices.

What are the Objectives of Monetary Policy?

The Reserve Bank Board sets interest rates so as to achieve the objectives set out in the Reserve Bank Act 1959

• the stability of the currency of Australia;
• the maintenance of full employment in Australia; and
• the economic prosperity and welfare of the people of Australia.

Since the early 1990s, these objectives have found practical expression in a target for consumer price inflation, of 2–3 per cent per annum. Monetary policy aims to achieve this over the medium term so as to encourage strong and sustainable growth in the economy. Controlling inflation preserves the value of money. In the long run, this is the principal way in which monetary policy can help to form a sound basis for long-term growth in the economy. This medium-term inflation target provides the flexibility for the Reserve Bank Board to set monetary policy so as best to achieve its broad objectives, including maintenance of full employment and financial stability, consistent with its legislative mandate.

The Monetary Policy Framework

The principal medium-term objective of monetary policy is to control inflation, so an inflation target is thus the centrepiece of the monetary policy framework. The Governor and the Treasurer have agreed that the appropriate target for monetary policy is to achieve an inflation rate of 2–3 per cent, on average, over time.^[1] This is a rate of inflation sufficiently low that it does not materially distort economic decisions in the community. Seeking to achieve this rate, on average, provides discipline for monetary policy decision-making, and serves as an anchor for private sector inflation expectations.

The inflation target is defined as a medium-term average rather than as a rate (or band of rates) that must be held at all times. This formulation allows for the inevitable uncertainties that are involved in forecasting, and lags in the effects of monetary policy on the economy. Experience in Australia and elsewhere has shown that inflation is difficult to fine-tune within a narrow band. The inflation target is also, necessarily, forward-looking. This approach allows a role for monetary policy in dampening the fluctuations in output over the course of the business cycle. When aggregate demand in the economy is weak, for example, inflationary pressures are likely to be diminishing and monetary policy can be eased, which will give a short-term stimulus to economic activity.

This approach to monetary policy in Australia commenced in the early 1990s. The earliest references to it were contained in speeches by the then Governor in August 1992 and March and August 1993.

The Monetary Policy Decision Process

The formulation of monetary policy is the primary responsibility of the Reserve Bank Board. The Board usually meets eleven times each year, on the first Tuesday of the month except in January. Hence, the dates of meetings are well known in advance. For each meeting, the Bank's staff prepare a detailed account of developments in the Australian and international economies, and in domestic and international financial markets. The papers contain a recommendation for the policy decision. Senior staff attend the meeting and give presentations. Monetary policy decisions by the Reserve Bank Board are communicated publicly shortly after the conclusion of the meeting.

The Implementation of Monetary Policy

From day to day, the Bank's Domestic Markets Department has the task of implementing the monetary policy decisions of the Board. The Reserve Bank Board's explanations of its monetary policy decisions are announced in a media release, which is distributed through electronic news services and published on the Reserve Bank's website at 2.30 pm on the day of each Board meeting.

Over recent decades, the Reserve Bank has targeted the cash rate, which is the rate charged on overnight loans between commercial banks. It has a powerful influence on other interest rates and forms the base on which the structure of interest rates in the economy is built. Any change to the cash rate target takes effect from the day following the announcement.

In addition to the cash rate, in March 2020 the Reserve Bank announced a target for the yield on the 3-year Australian Government bond to help lower funding costs across the economy. This target was discontinued in November 2021.

The Reserve Bank announced in November 2020 that it would purchase a nominated amount of bonds issued by the Australian Government as well as by the states and territories further out along the yield curve. This program of government bond purchases was discontinued in February 2022. Together with the target on the 3-year Australian Government bond, these bond purchases helped to lower the whole structure of interest rates in Australia.

The Reserve Bank also announced in March 2020 that it would provide a Term Funding Facility (TFF) for the banking system. The objectives of the TFF were to lower funding costs for the entire banking system so that the cost of credit to households and businesses is low, and to provide an incentive for lenders to support credit to businesses, especially small and medium-sized businesses. Under the drawdown period for the TFF, banks had access to new 3-year funding at an interest rate substantially below their funding costs. Access to funding included an additional allowance associated with a bank's growth of business credit. The TFF closed to new drawdowns as scheduled on 30 June 2021. As the facility provides low-cost fixed-rate funding for 3 years it will continue to support low borrowing costs until mid 2024.

For more information about the implementation of monetary policy, see: Market Operations. For more information on the monetary policy measures that the Bank has implemented since March 2020, see: Supporting the Economy and Financial System in Response to COVID-19.

The Transmission of Monetary Policy to the Economy

Movements in the interest rates targeted by the Reserve Bank are quickly passed through to other capital market interest rates such as money market rates and bond yields. These interest rates are also influenced by the risk tolerance of investors and preferences for holding funds in a form that are readily redeemable. The cash rate and other capital market interest rates then feed through to the whole structure of deposit and lending rates. In Australia, most deposits and loans are at variable or short-term fixed rates, so there is a high pass through of changes in the interest rates targeted by the Bank to deposit and lending rates. But because of the other factors influencing capital market rates, and fluctuations in the level of competition in the banking sector, deposit and lending rates do not always move in lockstep with the interest rates targeted by the Bank.

The changes in interest rates affect economic activity and inflation with much longer lags, because it takes time for individuals and businesses to adjust their behaviour. Interest rates affect economic activity via a number of mechanisms. They can affect saving and spending behaviour of firms and households, as well as cash flow, the supply of credit, asset prices and the exchange rate, all of which affect the level of aggregate demand. In turn, developments in aggregate demand, in conjunction with developments in aggregate supply, influence the level of inflation in the economy. Inflation is also influenced by the effect that changes in interest rates have on imported goods prices, via the exchange rate, and through their effect on inflation expectations more generally in the economy.

The Relationship Between Monetary Policy and Debt Management

Sound financial policy requires that the Government fully fund any budget deficit by issues of securities to the private sector at market interest rates, and not borrow from the central bank. Many countries have legislation to deliver this outcome, though in Australia it is effectively achieved by agreement between the Treasury and the Reserve Bank. This arrangement means that there is separation between monetary policy and the Government's debt management, with the Treasury directly responsible for the latter and the Reserve Bank responsible for the former.

It is not possible to ensure that the Australian Government's need for funds are exactly matched day-by-day by issues of securities to the market. To overcome this mismatch between daily spending and financing, the Treasury keeps cash balances with the Reserve Bank that act as a buffer. The Reserve Bank also provides an overdraft facility for the Government that is used to cover periods when an unexpectedly large mismatch exhausts cash balances. The agreement between the Treasury and the Reserve Bank places strict controls on access to the overdraft facility. The overdraft is used infrequently, generally to cover unforeseen shortfalls in cash balances.

The Relationship Between the Bank and the Government

The Reserve Bank Board makes decisions about monetary policy independently of the political process – that is, it does not accept instruction from the Government of the day on monetary policy. This principle of central bank independence in the operation of monetary policy, in pursuit of accepted goals, is the international norm. It prevents manipulation of monetary policy for political ends, and keeps monetary policy focused on its long-term goals.

With this independence naturally comes a need for consultation and accountability. The relationship of the RBA with the Government is one of independence with consultation, as outlined in Consultation with Government and Accountability to Parliament.

Accountability for Monetary Policy

The Reserve Bank's conduct of monetary policy is explained publicly through several channels. The Bank makes a public announcement of any policy decision, giving detailed reasoning for it. Minutes of the monetary policy meetings of the Reserve Bank Board are published two weeks after each meeting. It publishes four Statements on Monetary Policy each year, which contain a detailed analysis of the economy and financial markets, and an account of the considerations for the policy stance adopted by the Bank. The Governor appears twice each year before the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, to answer questions on the Bank's conduct of policy. Senior officers of the Reserve Bank also give speeches and participate in panel discussions on a broad range of topics related to its role and functions, including on monetary policy.