Bank of New Zealand
The Bank of New Zealand ( BNZ ) is calculated according to their wealth, the second largest commercial bank in New Zealand and the fourth largest bank in relation to its total assets. The bank, headquartered in Auckland is since 1992 owned by the Australian National Australia Bank.
History
The history of the Bank of New Zealand dates back to the early days of the once British colony of New Zealand. Mid-19th century there were in the colony a notorious shortage of money in circulation, the New Zealand pound. Several attempts by the New Zealand Governors Robert FitzRoy, George Edward Grey and Thomas Gore Browne, to change this situation failed. All four newly established in the colony 1840-1857 banks failed to meet their objectives and were dissolved. The only bank that supplied the money market of the colony and controlled at the same time, was the Australian Union Bank of Australia, emerged from the later of a merger with the Bank of Australasia, the Australia and New Zealand Bank ( ANZ).
The scarcity of money, the all-dominating Union Bank of Australia and the start of the Otago Gold Rush in May 1861 were the reasons to make the New Zealand banking system to a new and healthier basis. The New Zealand Bank Act 1861 gave permission to found the Bank of New Zealand to print its own banknotes to circulate. The same right was given, inter alia, and the Bank of New South Wales through the Bank of New South Wales Act 1861. Three more banks should be 1864, 1873 and 1874 follow the proper permissions.
After the founding of the Bank of New Zealand on 29 July 1861, the launch of their first activities was followed on 16 October 1861 in Auckland. It was followed by the opening of the first branch on December 2, 1881 in Dunedin on the South Island, the city, which should be by the gold rush in the province of Otago over several decades the largest and richest city in New Zealand.
A year after their bank founded the Bank of New Zealand, opened in October 1862 already an office in London, opened a branch in Wellington in the same year and built by and by the country's capital from the financial capital, then as in the 1890s Dunedin replace the main financial center of the two islands. Already in 1865, the Bank had established with £ 360,000 sales, by far the largest bank in the country.
Although himself into trouble, took over in 1895 the Bank of New Zealand in Dunedin in 1874, founded the Colonial Bank of New Zealand, only to be rescued by the Bank of New Zealand Banking Act 1895 and a stately capital injection from the state. The state took over the bank in 1945 and completely in 1986 allowed by law change an equity investor by up to one third of the equity. On 14 March 1989, the Bank was officially registered under the Companies Act as a Limited. In the late 1980s, the bank ran into trouble again and the New Zealand government they had with the company Rich Fay White & Co. (subsidiary Capital Markets Ltd.. Shareholders was 30% as of June 1989) with over 1.1 billion NZ dollars in the 1990 and 1991 support.
1992, the Bank of New Zealand was finally sold to the National Australia Bank Group. On 1 October 2008 we changed the brand name of Bank of New Zealand to BNZ. The company name (company) remained unchanged.
Today
The Bank of New Zealand, formerly largest bank in New Zealand, is after the merger of the ANZ Bank and the National Bank of New Zealand in 2003, based on the total assets of all banks, now in third place of the commercial banks that operate a branch network. Although as a commercial bank actually focuses on the New Zealand market, the bank also operates in Singapore financial services for financial investments since 1973.
In July 2006, the Bank of New Zealand was sentenced to repay NZ $ 5million to its credit card customers. The company had, the Fair Trading Act made like other banks, moreover, also, invoiced charges for foreign currency transactions its customers not appropriate known. The Commerce Commission also issued a fine of NZ $ 550,000 against the company.
In October 2009, should, as planned, the new offices of the Head Office of the Bank in the 200 million NZ $ expensive office tower, the Deloitte Centre in Auckland, be obtained. The Bank of New Zealand should therefore be one of the largest tenants in their own prestige project. The fact that the new building in Auckland was not welcome at all, was the criticism of the blog Eye on Auckland.