Kia ora,
My thoughts are with all those affected by recent events in Aotearoa – both Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland flooding.
If you’re in a position to provide material support to those in need I encourage you to donate to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.
The recent extreme weather events are a reminder that no matter how digitised our financial services ecosystem becomes, for now cash will always be a part of the landscape and as the RBNZ review of the ‘Future of Money’ confirmed, cash is not going away anytime soon.
FinTechNZ Hui Taumata 2023 – only a few days to go!
FinTechNZ Hui Taumata is less than a week away, and we’re excited to welcome so many FinTech leaders to Tamaki Makarau/Auckland to help connect and grow our sector. Many of our sponsors and speakers have contributed excellent blogs to the Hui website which will help you get primed for the conference. We’re almost at capacity and the Fast Pitch Breakfast is sold out with 80 registrations. If this sector is important to you, I urge you to register now.
A regular topic for our sector is New Zealand’s Consumer Data Right (CDR) legislation. This topic has been regularly discussed since CDR legislation was indicated in 2017. Delayed due to the COVID-19 interruption and further consultation, we now know it’s confirmed to focus on the banking sector and will progress through the house this year.
There’s quite a lot to take in on the topic of CDR from a legislative point of view, to understand the scope of its intent and consequently how the sector rises to the opportunity. Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister, Hon Dr Duncan Webb, will talk to this at the Hui and three of our members have written some great blogs on this topic that I highly recommend reading:
- The latest on New Zealand’s Consumer Data Right by Andrew Dentice, and Kyra Vince.
- The ABC of CDR: Open banking success starts here by Taner Uzelakcil, fromEnvestnet/Yodlee.
- 2023 and beyond: Open Banking, here to stay by Philip Cass, API Centre Manager at Payments NZ.
The day following the Hui, Wednesday, 1 March, AWS and Yodlee are hosting a panel discussion at 10am on CDR regulation, what it means for the industry, and how to prepare in New Zealand. If you’re interested in attending you can register here.
Event planning 2023/2024 – start your planning now – let us know what you would like
Planning is underway for our 2023/2024 events and we’d like to get our members involved in shaping the topics and sector conversations. Events are the cornerstone of market engagement including headline events like the FinTech Hui. Other events we host are our in-person connect events, online (inform) webinars, and specialist roundtables, not to mention collaborations with TechWeek, Financial Services Council and other Alliance associations. If you have a topic for an event you’d like to support, host or engage with please email us at info@fintechnz.org.nz.
Coming up soon
Two key events coming up include our in-person event on 16 March Private Innovation in Money supported by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. This event provides the opportunity to give feedback on The Future of Money in an informal setting. The second is a workshop on 1 March, Developing your way to success: Unpacking the developer journey in FinTech APIs.
In other news, I recently featured on BNZ’s Fintech Speaker Series where I chatted with Sorel Carr, Head of Fintech Business at BNZ, talking about the current Fintech scene in New Zealand, how we stack up on the global stage and where the innovation is. View the video here.
Ngā mihi
Executive Director
Read more here: FinTechNZ February Newsletter