Our Commerce Commission Post-conference submission and our AGM.
Welcome to the July 2024 newsletter. Here is a link to previous newsletters.
Commerce Commission post-conference submission
Our post-conference submission was put up on the Commerce Commission’s website. Attending the conference proved to be a great opportunity to get our message across.
We left the conference with a mixture of hope and concern. Hope popped up in many places among the attendees, including from the big banks whose ideas, on occasion, were surprisingly constructive. Concern came as we saw that the Reserve Bank was the only key player not represented, a further sign of its reluctance to engage or change despite being at the centre of some of the most severe competition problems.
To this end, our key follow-up recommendation was a joint Commerce Commission and RBNZ process to review retail banking regulation. We do not believe that the Reserve Bank alone, with its current skill set, culture, and priorities, will achieve the right balance between financial stability and competition.
We also asked the Commission to add retail separation to its recommendations. This would split the big banks’ retail and corporate/institutional sides, either through so-called ring-fencing (a form of operational separation) or an actual break-up similar to the way Telecom was split into Chorus (wholesale) and Spark (retail) to improve competition.
Our 2024 AGM
Our AGM was held on Wednesday, 12th June 2024. Here is a link to the minutes, which include the Chair’s report and our financial report. The year to 31 May 2024 was a busy one for us.
The Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary and Treasurer were elected unopposed.
Special meeting on the 10th of July
The PMNZ committee has called a special meeting to authorise updating our constitution, in the main to align with the requirements of the Incorporated Societies Act 2022.
An updated version of the Constitution is available for review and here is a link to the agenda. The Zoom address for the meeting will be https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6738024439 and the Special Meeting will be on Wednesday the 10th at 7pm.
Nga mihi
Don Richards