The Reserve Bank has kept official interest rates on hold at the record low of 1.5 per cent.

It is the 18th consecutive board meeting where the RBA has not budged from its emergency setting.

The non-move equals the previous longest stint without rates changing since the RBA became independent from Federal Treasury, set between January 1995 and July 1996.

The RBA last moved in August 2016 with a 0.25 percentage point cut.

Despite many economists believing the RBA had lost some conviction in its GDP growth forecasts, the decision was widely expected.

Futures markets had priced in a 0 per cent chance of a change.

-AAP