Annual inflation is expected to have risen sharply in the year ended March to 2.1%, above the Reserve Bank's target mid-point of 2%, the ASB is forecasting.
ANZ senior economist Phil Borkin is also forecasting a sharp rise but only 0.7% in the quarter, compared to the ASB's 0.9%, to an annual rate of 1.9%.
Annual inflation has risen from 0.4% in September to 1.3% in December to an expected 1.9% or 2.1% in March.
On Thursday, Statistics New Zealand will release its Consumer Price Index (CPI), the official measure of inflation.
Rising inflation means prices going up and pressure going on employers for wage rises after years of minimal movement in wage inflation.
As Finance Minister Steven Joyce prepares for the release of Budget 2017 on May 25, Opposition politicians have a chance to criticise Government policies which keep wages down as costs rise.
ASB economist Kim Mundy said despite annual inflation returning to the Reserve Bank's 2% target, part of the lift was temporary.
Higher petrol, food and tobacco prices were transitory and he expected inflation to dip again before grinding back up to the mid-point in the medium-term.
``The Reserve Bank itself noted in March's official cash rate statement inflation is likely to be volatile over the near term. With broader inflation pressures still muted, we expect the Reserve Bank to leave the OCR unchanged until late 2018.''
Mr Borkin said with inflation back at target, or close to it, some might argue the central bank should be shifting from its neutral stance.
The figures were expected to print well ahead of the Reserve Bank's Monetary Policy Statement forecast of 0.3% quarterly and 1.5% annually.
``We doubt the data will alter the Reserve Bank's thinking greatly. [It] was reasonably explicit in March it is discounting the impact of one-offs.''
For the Reserve Bank, the far more important issue was whether inflation was going to stabilise around the target and Mr Borkin doubted the rest of the CPI figures would provide a clear answer.
The ANZ monthly inflation gauge suggested outside of housing, domestic inflation pressures remained surprisingly benign.
Non-tradeable inflation was likely to be 0.9% in March but it was seasonable. Annual non-tradeable inflation was likely to have moved down to 2.3%.
Deflationary influences from the New Zealand dollar and globally should continue to be evident across the non-food and petrol sectors. Also, the peak impact from earlier petrol price gains was occurring now and the food price spike should also start to unwind, he said.
Ms Mundy said the Reserve Bank would be relieved to see capacity pressures were increasing, although they were largely confined to the construction and tourism industries.
Sustained levels of high net migration were supporting demand for construction and the recent tourism boom was placing pressure on the accommodation sector.
``We expect these pressures to continue driving inflation for some time yet. Further, in December, we saw some evidence of pricing power returning to retailers and the Reserve Bank will likely look for more evidence of this.''
