Submission on RBNZ consultation on modernising New Zealand’s retail payment system
28 Oct 2026
Payments NZ has made a submission on the Reserve Bank of New Zealand – Te Pūtea Matua consultation on Modernising New Zealand’s Retail Payment System.
Payments NZ supports the direction of modernisation and agrees Aotearoa New Zealand would benefit from clearer and more enduring national-level strategic direction, clearer accountability and investment in modern payment capabilities. Our submission recommends an outcomes-led approach, where the outcomes and capabilities Aotearoa needs are defined before decisions are made about governance, regulation, infrastructure or institutional arrangements.
We also emphasise that modernisation should build on the strengths of the existing payment system. Aotearoa starts from a strong foundation of reliability, resilience, settlement certainty, common rules and standards, low-cost processing, trust and proven industry delivery capability. At the same time, capability gaps need to be addressed, with domestic real-time payments identified as a key priority.
Payments NZ recommends an approach that:
- establishes a clear national payments strategy that defines national outcomes and priorities for modernisation
- defines required capabilities before determining institutional or technology solutions
- tests the diagnosis of current capability gaps against an accurate current-state baseline
- allocates authority, accountability, funding and delivery responsibility according to the function being performed
- uses proven industry coordination and delivery capability through an open public-private co-design process
- assesses future options transparently against whole-of-system impacts
- keeps institutional, architectural and settlement choices open while the evidence and options are assessed.
The submission also looks ahead to how the payment system can remain adaptable as technology and forms of money evolve, including real-time payments, tokenisation, programmability, digital identity, richer data and interoperability. It recommends that future design preserve flexibility and avoid locking Aotearoa into a single technology or architecture before the required outcomes and capabilities are clear.
At the centre of our position is a simple principle: define the outcomes first, identify the capabilities required to achieve them, and align clear public-interest direction with accountable industry delivery.