Is open banking live in New Zealand?
Yes. The five largest banks must provide official APIs under the Customer and Product Data Act 2025, and New Zealand recorded 550,000 open banking payments in August 2026. MBIE took over open banking standards when the Payments NZ API Centre closed in September 2026.
In detail
Yes. The five largest banks must provide official APIs under the Customer and Product Data Act 2025, and New Zealand recorded 550,000 open banking payments in August 2026. MBIE took over open banking standards when the Payments NZ API Centre closed in September 2026.
Payment by bank transfer in New Zealand
2026 is the year regulated open banking took off. Under the Customer and Product Data Act 2025, the five largest banks must offer official APIs, and open banking payments reached more than 401,000 worth over NZ$130 million in July 2026, then 550,000 in August. Payments NZ closed its API Centre on September 30, 2026 and handed standards management to MBIE.
Who runs on the bank APIs
POLi, owned in New Zealand by Merco, moved its merchants onto the open banking connections of ASB, Westpac, ANZ and BNZ. BlinkPay, bought by BNZ in 2024, also runs on official bank APIs and offers Blink PayNow for one-off payments and Blink AutoPay for recurring payments. Account-to-account payments held 11% of online value in 2025, according to the Global Payments Report.
More detail in our #PayWorldTour guide Payment methods in New Zealand.