Nicola Willis announced in June that the Finance and Expenditure Committee would be adding Rural banking to the inquiry into banking competition in New Zealand. In particular she noted that: "growing the rural economy is critical to rebuilding New Zealand's economy and with farmers satisfaction with banking services dropping in recent years, its critical we better understand the role of bank competition in that sector".

This followed an earlier process run by the Primary Production Select Committee to which NZAB was asked, among others, to provide a submission and subsequently present in person.

As part of this new inquiry, the New Zealand Government wants to delve deeper into the reasons why the cost of banking is much higher for business and rural borrowers and examine the effects it's having on the New Zealand economy.

NZAB recently made the below submission to the Finance and Expenditure Committee.  As this is a public process, we thought it would be useful to share our submission with our wider farming and farm professionals’ audience.

It covers a brief summary of some of the issues as we see them, but also offers some practical solutions that the committee might consider to improve farmers access to capital and have a positive impact on New Zealand’s ability to increase exports, close the current account deficit and continue to maintain New Zealand’s relative GDP vs its peers.  

If you have any questions on any part of our submission, please feel free to contact us.