The Australian dollar has pulled back in today’s trading session after rising earlier on the back of strong real estate data and according to one of the world’s biggest banks the Aussie has some serious gains in store as the year unfolds.

 Local building approvals numbers hit the market today at 11.7 percent against expectations for a figure of -1.3 percent which shows as the New Year gets underway, the housing market in Australia remains solid.

"Leading indicators such as finance for the construction or purchase of new housing continue to point toward further increases in approvals," said Daniel Gradwell, a senior economist at ANZ.

"It seems pretty clear to us that any fears of weaker dwelling construction in 2018 are misplaced." He added.

With such promising numbers, analysts from HSBC bank predict the Reserve Bank of Australia will begin normalizing monetary policy as they did in Europe and Canada last year and the Australian dollar should see similar gains as the Euro or Canadian dollar.

“The ECB’s pivot happened in 2017 as did the Bank of Canada’s. Both the EUR and CAD rallied strongly in response. But these moves are complete and we believe the excitement for 2018 lies elsewhere.” The bank said.

They also noted that the RBA will need to raise interest rates in the first half of the year on the back of strong “GDP, and further tightening in the labor market and an associated pick-up in wages growth”

HSBC expects the Australian dollar to rise around 10 percent from current levels to US84c as the year unfolds.