The central bank will make its announcement at 9am on Thursday.
ANZ chief economist Cameron Bagrie said there would be some obvious tweaks in the wording regarding the New Zealand dollar and recent data releases.
However, the overall tone was expected to be largely indistinguishable from the Reserve Bank’s August statement.
Mixed economic signals continued to justify the bank’s watchful stance, he said.
"GDP [economic growth] bounced in the second quarter but it was hardly stellar. The housing market has softened but negative spillovers appear limited.
"Oil prices have stabilised but our inflation gauge continues to point to scant price pressures outside of housing."
Political uncertainty was high but large fiscal pressures were brewing, Mr Bagrie said.
Bank funding pressures had eased but financial conditions had tightened. The demand for labour appeared to be cooling but skill shortages remained, which should eventually boost wage growth.
Global central banks were slowly moving to stopping economic financial stimulus, but policy uncertainty was high, he said.
The United States Federal Reserve last week left interest rates unchanged but signalled it still expected one more increase by the end of the year, despite a recent bout of weak inflation.
Officials said the "appropriate level" for the federal funds lending rate was between 1.25% and 1.5% by the end of the year, 0.25% off where it was now.
The Fed would begin next month reducing its $US4.2 trillion ($NZ5.8trillion) in holdings of US treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities by initially cutting up to $US10billion each month from the amount of maturing securities it reinvested.
Across the Tasman, worries about the state of Australia’s housing market, persistent high levels of debt and the high value of the Australian dollar convinced the Reserve Bank of Australia to keep interest rates on hold last week.
Continuing price rises in Melbourne’s established housing, against easing in Sydney, and further overall growth in mortgage borrowing above household income levels were among the factors convincing the central bank to hold the cash rate at 1.5%, minutes of the meeting said.
Mr Bagrie said New Zealand growth was barely at trend at a time the Reserve Bank needed to be generating excess demand to lift core inflation.
The case for a rate cut at some stage could be argued, but the hurdle for a cut should be high.
"Whether core inflation is 1.5% or 2% is splitting hairs. It is low and within the band. This is not the time to be a rigid inflation target."
The economy was not performing poorly, but neither was it strong enough to change the inflation profile, he said.
The housing market had cooled and the Reserve Bank was thought to be more worried about it taking off again than about the risk it slowed further.
All of the available information was likely to reinforce to the central bank "numerous uncertainties remain" leaving it happy with the view monetary policy would remain accommodative for a considerable period, Mr Bagrie said.
Key Reserve Bank leadership changes and the proximity to the election would reinforce the central back was unlikely to "rock the boat", not that economic development would warrant a change.
The next move to the OCR was likely to be a hike late next year, on a belief the dollar would remain under pressure as the global central bank liquidity tap was slowly turned off, wage growth increased and fiscal policy became more expansionary.
