Inside Money : Reserve Bank fights inflation, launches board game

A new board game is on the drawing board for the Reserve Bank. Photo / Richard Robinson

The Reserve Bank (RB) does a lot of big, important stuff for New Zealand's financial system that most of us don't really understand.

And during the global financial crisis (GFC) the Bank got to show off its importance by doing a raft of things that have been laid out in this gloomily-illustrated but almost beautiful fold-out section of the annual report.

But as well as keeping the economy safe from the ravages of inflation, lubricating the banking system and performing other headline-grabbing tricks the RB carried out a number of under-appreciated niche duties in the last financial year that are of a more concrete nature.

I think we should celebrate a few of these today:

•The Five-Dollar Swap Programme - the Bank gave two ATM cash delivery firms (a few guys in vans) a total of $3 million in crisp, new five dollar notes to exchange for grubby old notes soiled by daily financial intercourse. The used notes were returned to the Bank.

"About half were found to be unfit and were destroyed. This programme significantly reduced the number of poor quality $5 notes in circulation," the RB annual report reveals;

•The 'Settlement Before Interchange' Process - the Bank began work on a new system that will allow retail transactions to move between banks during the day, rather than the current process which settles our little deals overnight during the dreaded 'interchange' hours;

•The moneyPACIFIC Project - essentially a shark warning system for Pacific Islanders who regularly send money home, although the RB report describes it as a "financial education programme focused on making it easier for Pacific people to find out more about the cost of remittances and other financial products";

•The Finance Companies Board Game -this board game has been conceived as an "innovative teaching tool... to support our expanded regulatory role for NBDTs [non bank deposit takers]".

The RB is light on details for this game but my guess is it will be a kind of reverse Monopoly where the aim is to destroy the wealth of other players while wangling a government guarantee for your own and a Do Not Go To Jail card.

The game is due for release maybe later this year, which could solve my Christmas present problems.