Published 30 May 2025
We’ve reached a major milestone for open banking in Aotearoa New Zealand. Today, the four largest banks – ANZ, ASB, BNZ, and Westpac NZ – are due to implement version 2.3 of our Payment Initiation API standard.
It’s the third milestone in our Minimum Open Banking Implementation Plan and a pivotal moment in the evolution of a more connected, consumer-empowered financial ecosystem.
This upgraded standard has been developed in close partnership with banks, fintechs, and broader ecosystem stakeholders. It introduces enduring payment consent and decoupled authentication – functionality that’s been high on the priority list for third parties and developers.
These features not only provide new flexibility for customers, but set a higher bar for what’s possible in digital payments. As Phil Cass, our API Centre Manager, puts it:
“Enduring payment consent fundamentally changes the landscape. It brings us closer to a secure, transparent alternative to direct debit – giving consumers greater visibility and control. This milestone proves what industry collaboration can achieve, especially when it’s anchored in strong technical foundations and trust.”
Kiwibank is also on track to implement the same standard by May 2026, ensuring broad coverage and consistency across the major retail banks.
This achievement comes just weeks after the Customer and Product Data Act 2025 came into force, and we’re committed to working with MBIE to achieve a sustainable open banking ecosystem that finds the right balance between regulation and ongoing industry leadership.
Growing together: our expanding ecosystem
The momentum doesn’t stop with implementation. Our community is growing – we now have 7 API Providers, 27 Third Parties, and more than 500 Community Contributors. Already this year, we’ve welcomed several new third parties into the fold.
Our four cross-industry working groups – Business, Technical, Accreditation & Partnering, and Customer & Safety – are contributing hundreds of hours of combined expertise, co-designing the future of open banking in Aotearoa.
A key piece of this is our Partnering Framework. Authorised by the Commerce Commission in August 2024, this initiative is focused on making it easier and faster for third parties to establish partnerships with banks. Together with 19 Standards User organisations, we’ve been defining fit-for-purpose accreditation criteria, classes, and risk settings that ensure both safety and ease of access.
Data handling guidelines
The API Centre has partnered with Māori data scientists from Nicholson Consulting – world leaders in indigenous data sovereignty – to develop best practice guidelines for data handling, grounded in the Māori Data Governance principles and framework.
Our data handling guidelines provide a universal framework that supports all users, including Third Parties and permitted users, to align their data practices with broader principles of good data governance. We look forward to publishing the guidelines in mid-June.
What’s next?
This year we’re also delivering a performance standard to ensure consistent availability, service quality, and outage management. Our new customer experience guidelines are already live, offering safer, more intuitive pathways for customer interaction, including for intermediary journeys.
Consultation is imminent on version 3.0 of our standards and we will continue to support implementation of version 2.3 of the Account Information API across the major banks, expected by 28 November.
And of course, we’re looking forward to celebrating six years of the API Centre with The Hub | Pulse event in mid-June. We’ll be reflecting on the incredible progress we’ve made together, while looking ahead to the next phase of industry-led open banking in a regulated world.
Open banking is here. Customers are using it. And together, we’re just getting started.
Stay up to date with all our milestones and announcements by subscribing to our newsletter.