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. Any change to the cash rate target will take effect from the following day.
The Reserve Bank uses its domestic market operations (sometimes called ‘open market operations’) to keep the cash rate as close as possible to the target set by the Board, by managing the supply of funds available to banks in the money market.
The cash rate is determined in the money market as a result of the interaction of demand for and supply of overnight funds. The Reserve Bank's ability to pursue successfully a target for the cash rate stems from its control over the supply of funds which banks use to settle transactions among themselves. These are called exchange settlement funds, after the accounts at the Reserve Bank in which banks hold these funds.
If the Reserve Bank supplies more exchange settlement funds than the commercial banks wish to hold, the banks will try to shed funds by lending more in the cash market, resulting in a tendency for the cash rate to fall. Conversely, if the Reserve Bank supplies less than banks wish to hold, they will respond by trying to borrow more in the cash market to build up their holdings of exchange settlement funds; in the process, they will bid up the cash rate. The actual level of the cash rate, which results from the Reserve Bank's market operations, as well as the target rate are shown in Graph 3.