Reserve Bank proposes getting banks to set up more than a thousand new ATMs or cash services sites in dramatic proposal<\/a><\/p>\nKey added: \u201cIf you look at the bit of the economy that\u2019s untaxed in New Zealand, it\u2019s the cash system. If you want to get to the point where, as a Government, you\u2019re sure everything\u2019s taxed, the only way to do that is get rid of cash\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo if I was the Reserve Bank Governor, what I\u2019d be saying is: \u2018Show me how you can have far better services of the likes that are provided by Bolt or any other financial institution in New Zealand, at sharp prices and digitally provided.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Key said the Reserve Bank (RBNZ) also had to accept that \u201ccrypto and stablecoins\u201d (digital currency pegged to a fiat currency) were going to be part of the future payments system.<\/p>\n
A fintech for fintechs<\/p>\n
Key told the Herald he was attracted to Bolt because it combined his experience in banking with his tech experience on the boards of Oritain and Palo Alto Networks. <\/p>\n
New Zealand country manager James Woodward said Bolt is launching as a B2B (business-to-business) venture in New Zealand, offering BaaS (banking as a service) for anyone with a fintech app, or any company in any sector that wants to add card programmes, multi-currency wallets or cross-border payment processing. <\/p>\n
D2C soon<\/p>\n
But by the end of this year, Bolt\u2019s direct-to-consumer product will be launched in New Zealand too.<\/p>\n
Card issuing and acquiring services and savings accounts are on the way through partners Mastercard and Westpac.<\/p>\n
Woodward and Key spoke to an audience that included Stonewood Group co-founder John Chow, Toroa Group founder, NewMoney director and stablecoin advocate Ryan Johnson-Hunt and various people from the financial services industry.<\/p>\n
Like its immediate competitors, Bolt does not have a banking licence but is on the Financial Service Providers Register (FSPR).<\/p>\n
Bolt (no relation to the rideshare firm of the same name) was founded in Australia in 2020, where it was initially known as \u201cBano\u201d. <\/p>\n
It now has operations in New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, China, Singapore and the US, working with financial institutions, fintech companies and global payment networks, Woodward says.<\/p>\n
Like its peers, Bolt promises to be faster, cheaper and easier than traditional banks for services like foreign exchange.<\/p>\n
Key quipped at the launch: \u201cYesterday, me and James had a bit of a competition where I looked at the chairman\u2019s rate I would get when I was at ANZ and wanted to sell $100 and buy US$100 [he left the bank\u2019s board in early 2024]. I was convinced that on that rate I would be able to beat Bolt and the answer was I couldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald\u2019s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He was named chairman of its advisory group in March last year. Key said the push to go…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[542,35678,82170,1975,165677,32319,1643,916,1396,138,6932,1651,38638,46988,2082,2740,4508,24176,5126,4277,6722,130,111,139,69,3111,384,174434,415,17159,15400,53656,10665,1321,8485,18988,19554,2742,584,3382],"class_list":["post-322925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-access","tag-additional","tag-andor","tag-at","tag-atms","tag-backs","tag-bank","tag-banking","tag-banks","tag-business","tag-cash","tag-digital","tag-easily","tag-ensure","tag-for","tag-former","tag-hits","tag-hundreds","tag-john","tag-key","tag-minister","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-out","tag-people","tag-potshot","tag-prime","tag-proposal","tag-push","tag-require","tag-reserve","tag-services","tag-sir","tag-sites","tag-taken","tag-thousands","tag-trade","tag-using"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}