Our banks played a role as part of the ‘team of five million’ coordinated response. Working with the government, the Reserve Bank and credit reporting agencies, banks moved quickly to offer loan repayment deferrals and reduced loan repayments for customers financially affected by the pandemic. That provided immediate relief for many. Around $70 billion in household and business loans had all repayments deferred or reduced. Most of those loans are now back to normal repayments, thanks to the ‘NZ Inc’ response to the pandemic and consequently better-than-expected economic conditions.
Financial Markets Authority
NZBA chief executive Roger Beaumont said the hub trials will run for 12 months and “Only then will we be able to assess if the communities where the trials are based found them useful, and whether they could form the basis of banking services in places where branches are no longer viable due to lack of customer demand.”
New Zealand Bankers’ Association chief executive Roger Beaumont said customers now preferred other ways of banking and the branches were no longer viable, “In some cases there may be fewer than 10 customers a day in these branches. That’s simply unsustainable.”
Bankers’ Association chief executive Roger Beaumont said fewer than1 per cent of customers used cheques and the move to digital services was driven by customer preference.
Bankers’ Association chief executive Roger Beaumont said on Monday that it understood why the Reserve Bank had been unable to say much at that time.
Roger Beaumont, chief executive of the New Zealand Bankers’ Association, said it was an ongoing challenge and banks recognised it was tough for older customers in particular, who had larger amounts of money in the bank and depended on the income it earned, to subsidise their living costs.
Bankers’ Association chief executive Roger Beaumont said that “as it was a security issue we understand why the Reserve Bank cannot say much more at this stage”.
Roger Beaumont, chief executive of the New Zealand Bankers Association, says the outbreak of Covid-19 has sped up trends in the banking industry that were already happening.
Reserve Bank of New Zealand