NZD rose against its major rivals in the European session on Wednesday after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) unexpectedly signaled that it might increase its interest rates as early as September 2022. 

The RBNZ announced that at its latest meeting its Monetary Policy Committee decided to leave the official cash rate (OCR) at 0.25%, as widely expected. It also pledged to keep the Large Scale Asset Purchase and Funding for Lending programmes unchanged. At the same time, the Committee’s OCR projections showed that it expects the rate to rise to 0.49% by September 2022 and 0.67% by December 2022. The RBNZ's hawkish statement contrasts with dovish comments from the U.S. Federal Reserve and the neighboring Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), which has continued to repeat that its interest rates will be on hold at the current near-zero levels until 2024 at the earliest.