New Zealand’s Reserve Bank Told to Act on Lack of Competition

Finance Minister Nicola Willis has told the Bank to use its regulatory powers to encourage more banking competition, or the government will act.

Logos of the four major New Zealand banks. Illustration by Rex Widerstrom/The Epoch Times, NASA Astronaut Matthias Maurer, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, Matthias Maurer/Flickr

Finance Minister Nicola Willis has told the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) to use its regulatory powers to encourage more banking competition, saying that if it fails to do so, the government will consider legislative changes. A rewrite of the RBNZ’s financial policy remit is about to begin.

The new remit will make it clear the Bank “needs to not only sustain competition, but actually promote more competition and to effect that through its prudential and regulatory settings,” Willis told the Institute of Finance Professionals NZ conference in Auckland on Oct. 15.