Westpac NZ has settled with author Nicky Hager and apologised for breaching his privacy by releasing his banking information to police in 2014 following the release of Hager's book "Dirty Politics". The police were trying to determine the identity of a hacker who had provided the emails and chatlogs that formed the basis of the book about the National Party's links with attack blogger "Whaleoil". Last year the Privacy Commissioner ruled that Westpac's release of financial information on request - without requiring a search warrant or other legal order - was a privacy breach that could not be excused by any terms of conditions that bank customers may have agreed to. A Reserve Bank of New Zealand memo about a report into bank capital levels has come to light, revealing the central bank dismissing a report from PwC claiming NZ's big (Australian-owned) banks already effectively hold more capital than the RBNZ wants them to hold in the future. BusinessDesk reports that the PwC analysis was commissioned by the New Zealand Bankers Association, and concluded that the way the country's banks measure capital is more conservative than banks overseas with the result that, on a 'like for like' basis, their tier 1 capital is already above the 16 percent the RBNZ is proposing they be forced to hold. The three page memo from RBNZ from December 2017 dismissed the report and the regulator pressed on with its capital review.