The opening of the New Zealand border has resulted in international tech, bank tech, platforms and countries parachuting
into the country, FinTechNZ executive director Jason Roberts says.
There are much more than just travel gateways opening up again.
International fintech providers and tech platforms are eyeing up a marketplace ripe for improvement, investment and for
some, disruption.
They are able to parachute in platforms, global insight, capital and have established customer solutions. Our job is to
welcome these new companies and their insights while at the same time learning from them.
We have seen recent entrances from companies like Basiq, who really help enable Fintechs, EnvestnetYodlee and Temonos,
both multinational banking tech innovation players who help incumbent organisations offer more nimble and innovative
services).
We welcome these international companies as they help enable the sector and puts more pressure on the market to
accelerate innovation.
It is important New Zealand leverages the new opportunities to shape what is best for our country and determine our own
destiny, not simply being dominated yet again by international banks, insurers or tech platforms.
Innovation has been a hallmark of financial services for decades, but with the emergence of transformative new
technologies in recent years, the era of client-empowered finance is coming into full view.
And while technologies like blockchain and cloud computing attract much of the attention, application programming
interfaces, or APIs, truly represent the future of financial services across the retail, institutional and post-trade
areas.
The appetite for open banking, where consumers allow third-party providers to use the financial information held by
their bank to inform new products, is fast growing and will be further accelerated by the anticipated customer data
right legislation.
Progress in the sector differs by countries, but demand for and use of open banking services has been further expedited
by the Covid pandemic.
To make open banking successful and sustainable, however, more banks need to embrace an end-to-end digital architecture.
In recent years, technology has facilitated a progressive opening up of the banking industry. It has ushered in an era
of collaboration not just competition between incumbent banks and fintech.
What we want is to invite insight, challenge to shape best for New Zealand’s open banking and by inference improve our
ability to export our fintech solution to the world.
Most are fintechs well prepared for consumer data rights (CDR) legislation and have open banking capability they will be
ripe to leverage a marketplace New Zealand.
CDR gives people greater choice and control over their data businesses. It enables people to transfer their data to
another business to find products and services tailored to their needs, saving time and money.
The reframe is strong bank actors leveraging fintech innovation in New Zealand and globally and at different levels such
as Xero, Blinkpay and Dosh. The new services provide lower prices and the all-in-one pocket approach is good for
customer.