Interest.co.nz goes on a search for Commerce Commission Chairman John Small's 'recalcitrant' bank

Which bank is Commerce Commission Chairman John Small's recalcitrant one?

A quick recap.  Speaking to Parliament's Economic Development, Science and Innovation Select Committee on Tuesday, December 3, Small noted a recent meeting with a bank CEO about open banking.

"One of the other commissioners and myself had a meeting with one of the big bank CEOs 10 days ago. We wrote to them because we considered them recalcitrant in several ways. And the CEO came in, we had a cordial discussion, and resolved things that way," Small said, and Interest.co.nz reported on Wednesday, December 4.

Interest.co.nz asked the Commission which bank and which fellow commissioner Small was referring to. The consumer watchdog has turned this query into an Official Information Act request.

"We have treated this as a request under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) and confirm it has been logged as OIA 24.111," a Commission spokeswoman said.

"We will be in touch with a decision on your request by no later than 22 January 2025. We note that the period from 25 December 2024 to 15 January 2025 is excluded from the definition of working day under the OIA."

Interest.co.nz also asked representatives of the big four banks, ANZ New Zealand, ASB, BNZ and Westpac NZ, plus Kiwibank, if Small was referring to their bank.

Spokespeople for both Westpac NZ and ASB said it wasn't their bank.

An ANZ spokeswoman said; "We meet with all regulators on a regular basis to discuss a variety of issues. These are confidential."

A BNZ spokesman said; "We don't disclose interactions with our regulators."

And a Kiwibank spokesman said; "I’d say John is the best person to ask."

It seems unlikely Small was referring to BNZ. It's the bank that has embraced the opportunity and threat of open banking the most to date. BNZ's annual results announcement in November noted it had more than 250,000 customers using its application programming interface (API) services. And on the eve of those results BNZ announced the purchase of fintech BlinkPay.

The big four banks have been required to meet two key open banking milestones set by bank-owned company Payments NZ this year. Kiwibank isn't required to be technically and operationally ready to allow its customers to share financial data with third parties until 2026.

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