BNZ CEO Andrew Thorburn says the bank's Harbour Quays building in downtown Wellington, where about 1,200 staff are based, will be closed for at least six to eight weeks following the recent earthquakes.
In an update on BNZ's Facebook page Thorburn says both the building's owner CentrePort Wellington and BNZ itself have had independent engineers assess the building.
"They have all told us the building is structurally sound. This has enabled us to start to remove some critical equipment so we can maintain business as usual as much as possible for our customers," Thorburn said.
The bank had also had construction specialists through the building, who are assessing the damage inside and how long it will take to get things back to working order.
"As you can imagine, there is some cleaning up to be done inside the building. It has been subject to water damage which is in parts extensive because of burst pipes caused by dislodged ceiling panels," said Thorburn.
"Now we’ve been in, initial assessments suggest it could be at least 6-8 weeks to make the necessary repairs to the fit out of the building. Obviously, there is more planning to be done to finalise exact time frames and we’ll keep you informed as we know more."
"We’re doing everything we can to get our people back working quickly - either from home or from alternative sites and we’ll keep you informed as more information comes to hand," said Thorburn.
"Once again, our peoples’ safety is paramount and I want you to have my personal assurance that we will not be expecting anyone to go into Harbour Quays or any other affected BNZ building until we are certain it is safe to do so," Thorburn added.
He said all BNZ's stores, or branches, in the earthquake affected region bar Harbour Quay sand Martinborough, are now open.
"As always, the welfare and safety of our people and continuity of services for customers are our key priorities. Take care."
The Harbour Quays building was completed as recently as 2009. It was built by Fletcher Construction, designed by architects Jasmax, with Beca both the structural and service engineer. The building's owner, CentrePort, is itself 76.9% owned by Wellington Regional Council and 23.1% owned by Manawatu-Wanganui Regional Council, or Horizons Regional Council.
Meanwhile, a BNZ spokeswoman told interest.co.nz that the bank's Wellington-based IT services are all running as normal.
"Our IT team is currently focussed on getting our staff set up with equipment either at home or at other BNZ locations in Wellington. Some call centre workers have come up to Auckland to support the team which has reduced wait times almost back to normal levels. Most people are currently working from home but we're focussed on setting up Wellington sites to temporarily locate people for the next few weeks," the spokeswoman said.
She said it was too early to talk about costs.
(Update adds comments from BNZ spokeswoman, more detail on the building).
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