mvn download package files into current directory

can anybody please help why mvn command always download dependancy files into current directory? It should be stored into M2_HOME right?

I have tried

mvn package
mvn help:system

$M2_HOME has been set correctly

C:\> mvn --version
Apache Maven 3.6.3 (cecedd343002696d0abb50b32b541b8a6ba2883f)
Maven home: C:\Users\Documents\bin\apache-maven-3.6.3\bin\..
Java version: 1.8.0_252, vendor: Azul Systems, Inc., runtime: C:\Users\Documents\bin\Zulu\zulu-8\jre
Default locale: en_SG, platform encoding: Cp1252
OS name: "windows 10", version: "10.0", arch: "amd64", family: "windows"

Solution

@khmarbaise, thank you for your reply. I tried to follow your advice but problem persists.

First I notice my $HOME variable is not set but $JAVA_HOME is good

So I set up $HOME variable and restarted command prompt but result is still same - 'mvn package' still downloads packages to current working directory instead of $HOME/.m2/repository.

Secondly I checked $HOME/.m2/settings.xml file. Do you see any issues below?

<settings
    xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0
https://maven.apache.org/xsd/settings-1.0.0.xsd">
    <localRepository/>
    <interactiveMode/>
    <usePluginRegistry/>
    <offline/>
    <pluginGroups/>
    <servers/>
    <mirrors>
        <mirror>
            <id>xxx-maven</id>
            <mirrorOf>central</mirrorOf>
            <name>xxx maven repo</name>            <url>https://xxx/nexus/repository/repo/</url>
        </mirror>
    </mirrors>
    <profiles/>
    <activeProfiles/>
</settings>