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New Zealand risks falling further behind, an industry leader says.
Photo: 123RF
The financial technology (fintech) sector is growing fast, but not fast enough to satisfy the industry’s aspirations to be a global leader.
FinTechNZ executive director Jason Roberts said about 80 percent of fintechs were exporters, and the biggest contributors to the tech sector’s annual export revenues of $2.14 billion.
However, Roberts said New Zealand was lagging behind the growth of global fintech leaders and needed to pick up the pace or risk falling further behind.
“I would describe us as early stage, and you could generally say open finance is early stage around the world,” he said, adding that open banking – forcing banks to share their customers’ data when requested – was still considered a relatively new development,” he said.
“But actually, New Zealand’s a step behind even more and part of that is to do with legislation. Part of it is to do with the predominance of Australian banks and the relative control they have in the New Zealand marketplace, which has held back some of the innovation.”
The association was working with Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) on a nationwide survey designed to better understand what fintech exporters experience when operating or entering global markets, Roberts said.
“The market is undergoing a major shift leveraging cutting-edge and trail blazing fintech, such as the shift away from plastic card payments towards digital, such as phone digital wallet solutions,” he said.
“As technology improves and becomes even more ingrained in the day-to-day life of people, there will be more embedded finance, such as payments and lending and more embedded insurance than ever before.”
The data collected was expected to help the industry to better enter and develop global markets, with products that meet the market.
“Apart from helping our own sector, we’re also going to get a better understanding about where to direct our energies,” he said.
“We’re really wanting to find out what’s happening in the world to get it right – right for New Zealand.”
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