Aotearoa New Zealand’s payments system is one of the unseen pillars of our economy. In 2025 alone, $8.6 trillion moved safely through the system we govern, supporting households, businesses and industries across Aotearoa.
This year also marked some important upgrades to our payments infrastructure, modernising how money and data move and laying the foundations for the next generation of payments.
We’ve released our 2025 Year in Review that highlights:
- ISO 20022 migration completed by 15 institutions, delivering richer data and stronger global connectivity.
- Open banking scaled, with 100,000+ users a month by year end.
- Fraud awareness uplift supported through industry-led reporting and better insights into trends.
- Ngā Tohu Ārahi launched, embedding Māori data sovereignty principles in data handling.
- Next generation payments recommendations developed through industry consultation.
- Global recognition for New Zealand’s modernisation, including seven‑day payments.
A modernised foundation for the future
The transition to ISO 20022 delivered a generational uplift for high‑value payments, enabling richer data, improved compliance and better global interoperability. This modern standard lays the groundwork for smarter financial services and automation across the economy.
Across the sector, we continued to deepen understanding of emerging scam patterns through industry‑led fraud reporting and analysis, helping build collective awareness and support safer payments for consumers and businesses.
Open banking also reached a major milestone. With upgraded API standards in place and a regulated framework now active, adoption accelerated strongly – reaching over 100,000 monthly users by late 2025.
We strengthened our commitment to inclusion and data ethics with Ngā Tohu Ārahi, a set of data‑handling guidelines grounded in Māori data sovereignty and te ao Māori principles.
Industry engagement throughout our next generation payments consultation confirmed strong alignment on what’s ahead – a future characterised by safer, faster, more inclusive and data‑rich payments.