New Zealand Banned Banks From Charging Open Banking API Fees

New Zealand banks cannot charge accredited fintechs for regulated open banking API calls, after a planned 5-cent cap still left some products unable to pay their way. The ban took effect on 1 December 2025 under the Customer and Product Data Act 2025.

That result went further than the Commerce Commission asked for on 10 December 2024, when it published four incompatible bank price lists and said high, uneven, opaque fees were limiting third parties.

Four Price Lists Made One Product Impossible

The Commission’s point was mechanical. Bank APIs are complements, not substitutes. A payments or budgeting app that wants national coverage has to connect to each major bank, so the dearest, oddest tariff sets the shape of the product.

ANZ priced payment initiation at 0.25% of the amount, capped at $1. BNZ charged a $30 monthly flat fee (GST-exempt) with 600 free successful payment calls, then $0.05 a call. ASB’s range sat between $0.00 and $0.20 and was under review. Westpac charged up to 30 cents per successful call, set in bilateral deals.

On a $10 payment, BNZ’s 5-cent overage was twice ANZ’s 2.5 cents. On a $400 payment, ANZ’s $1 cap was 20 times BNZ’s 5 cents. The inversion is the design problem: a checkout built for coffee-card tickets and a payroll product built for rent both had to live on the same four pipes.

BANK API MENUS ON 10 DECEMBER 2024

The Commission put the average online personal card payment at about $80, where standard call fees could run from 5 cents to 30 cents. It estimated that at least 15% of eligible customers at each of the four largest banks had already made an open banking payment through APIs, a higher share than it had seen in Australia or the UK, and said one bank had more than 100 third parties asking for access.

Uptake was not zero. The price list still decided which tickets could be sold. Those mismatched 2024 menus, which already meant high and varying open banking API costs, did more than pad invoices. They made a single national fee schedule for a fintech product a fiction.

The public row often treated the $30 BNZ line as a tax on a person downloading their own transactions. The fintech paid it, not the account holder. The deeper objection was the same one bank staff already know: internet banking does not add a 5-cent surcharge when a customer initiates a payment in the bank’s own app, because the call is how the stack works. Charging a third party for that call still set the retail price of every product that had to sit on all four banks at once.

We are concerned that current pricing is damaging the nascent market. Taken together, prices are high, vary considerably between banks and are not transparent – this is limiting third parties’ abilities to offer competitive products and services using these APIs.

Commerce Commission, Retail Payment System update on open banking progress, 10 December 2024

The same damaging the nascent market note asked banks to review, lower and standardise prices. It also wanted an orderly shift off “suboptimal access,” the older methods that ask customers to type bank logins into a third-party screen. Standardised payment APIs had been in market at ANZ, ASB, BNZ and Westpac by 30 May 2024, but only BNZ was live with multiple third parties before that date. The first firm on all four banks’ APIs, BlinkPay, got there in October 2024.

Cabinet Dropped the 5-Cent Cap

Andrew Bayly, then Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, was weighing a Commission recommendation to designate API fees. The Customer and Product Data Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 29 March 2025. In April, Cabinet agreed to designate banking and, at that stage, to cap what banks could charge accredited requestors.

The working cap was 5 cents per payment request and 1 cent per account-information request, with a ceiling of $5 a month for near real-time access. A May 2025 government fact sheet still carried those figures, and said banks could not charge customers for accredited requests.

Cabinet papers later released by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) record why that cap died. Officials said new information showed some wanted use cases would not be viable if providers were charged up to the cap. Banks in the UK and Australia are barred from charging for the equivalent access. Some New Zealand banks had already said they would not charge for the first 12 months, and Kiwibank had said it did not intend to charge at all.

So the regulated system did not pick BNZ’s 5 cents, ANZ’s 0.25%, or a blended midpoint. It picked zero, for accredited requestors only. Scott Simpson, who held the commerce portfolio when the rules were made, said the October 2025 regulations followed models in Australia and the UK and told fintechs to file for accreditation.

What Accredited Fintechs Pay Instead of API Fees?

From 1 December 2025, ANZ, ASB, BNZ and Westpac are designated data holders. The general-requirements rules prohibit data holders from charging accredited requestors for providing open banking, and they must onboard an accredited firm within 20 working days of a complete notice.

The call is free at the bank’s door. The system is not free. MBIE recovers its costs through application fees and levies, GST exclusive.

WHAT THE REGULATED SYSTEM CHARGES

A startup on the bottom revenue rung therefore swaps four unpredictable per-call menus for a known $2,000 application and a $1,300 levy. A large intermediary faces annual levies from $1,300 to $85,000 at the top of that scale. The four largest banks, if they sit in the top asset band, each pay $1,248,700 a year toward running the regime.

The first phase is also narrower than the 2024 commercial APIs. From 1 December 2025 to 1 June 2027, designated banks only have to offer regulated services for accounts that customers reach through each bank’s main consumer mobile or web channel. Business and other digital facilities wait. Kiwibank is on a later clock: payment duties from 1 June 2026, account-information duties from 1 December 2026. Other deposit-takers may opt in.

Akahu Has Moved 94 Partners Onto Bank APIs

Accreditation is the new gate. MBIE’s first group of accredited requestors, confirmed in late December 2025 and early January 2026, were Akahu Technologies, Blink Pay NZ, Merco (the firm behind POLi), and Volley Payments. Volley went on the Register of Participants on 22 December 2025. Akahu was added on 7 January 2026. Each of those four registered as an intermediary for payments and customer data, so they can pull data and instruct payments for clients’ downstream customers.

Akahu is the plumbing most of those downstream apps actually touch. On 2 October 2026 the company said that of 130 organisations and products accredited to use it in production, 94 have completed their transition to the regulated system and another 32 were still migrating. It said the four largest banks have been required to comply since 1 December 2025, and that Kiwibank delivered the same APIs on 28 May 2026, ahead of its 1 June payments duty.

AKAHU’S REGULATED SWITCH

• Partner base: 130 organisations and products were using Akahu in production when it published the update.
• Already moved: 94 had finished the shift onto regulated bank APIs.
• Still moving: 32 were actively migrating, leaving a handful still to go.
• Bank cover: four majors from 1 December 2025, Kiwibank APIs from 28 May 2026; smaller banks still have no duty to offer the APIs.

That is one network’s book, not a census of every Kiwi app. It is still the clearest public count of how fast screen-scraping is being retired where a regulated pipe exists. The Commission said in March 2026 that Kiwibank’s APIs would lift consumer-account coverage to about 90%.

THE FIRST ACCREDITED REQUESTORS

• Akahu: Open-finance connector; first home-loan applications on the regulated rails with lenders and brokers including Simplicity, Indi, Squirrel and New Zealand Home Loans.
• BlinkPay: Pay-by-bank gateway, first firm on all four major-bank APIs in October 2024, now a BNZ subsidiary.
• Merco (POLi): Long-running account-to-account checkout brand, accredited as an intermediary.
• Volley: Payments firm on the register from 22 December 2025, also accredited as a non-intermediary for its own customers’ data.

The club is small because accreditation is small. Security, liability cover, a complaints process and MBIE’s trust mark sit in front of the free API. Firms that cannot clear that bar keep using older access until banks turn it off.

BNZ Bought the First Four-Bank Connector

BlinkPay’s October 2024 four-bank milestone lasted a few weeks as an independent fact. On 6 November 2024, BNZ announced it had joined forces with the Auckland fintech and named BNZ as BlinkPay’s new owner. Co-founder Adrian Smith became chief executive. BNZ said BlinkPay would keep its own leadership and a startup culture. Terms were not disclosed. BNZ chief executive Dan Huggins tied the deal to a lead the bank had claimed since 2018.

BNZ has been at the forefront of open banking in New Zealand since 2018, with more than 250,000 customers already benefiting from innovative financial services enabled by BNZ’s open banking technology.

Dan Huggins, Chief Executive, BNZ, 6 November 2024

Smith, whose firm is Māori-led, said BNZ was backing the vision while leaving the startup DNA in place. The regulated register still lists Blink Pay NZ as an accredited requestor, so the first nationwide connector sits inside one of the four data holders whose fees the Commission had just criticised. Other accredited firms still need ANZ, ASB, Westpac and Kiwibank. Ownership does not collapse the four-pipe problem. It does mean the reference implementation of “pay from any major bank” is no longer a standalone rival to the banks that own the accounts.

Screen-Scraping Faces a 2026 Switch-Off

Free regulated APIs only help a fintech that is accredited and whose use case is in the standard. Everything else still runs on suboptimal access, which the Commission says is not in consumers’ long-term interest because it means handing a bank password to a third party.

On 5 March 2026 the Commission told the large banks to begin turning off that access, for use cases the designated APIs already cover, from June 2026, once each bank had delivered API v2.3 and third parties had six months on MBIE’s accreditation regime. It wanted the bulk of the shift done by the end of 2026. None of the five large banks then named a calendar day for killing third-party impersonation. ASB said it would work with fintechs before setting a date.

HOW THE FEE FIGHT CLOSED

1. 30 May 2024: ANZ, ASB, BNZ and Westpac each have a standardised payment API in market; only BNZ is already live with multiple third parties.
2. October 2024: BlinkPay becomes the first third party on all four banks’ APIs.
3. 6 November 2024: BNZ takes ownership of BlinkPay.
4. 10 December 2024: The Commission publishes the four price lists and says they are damaging a young market.
5. 29 March 2025: The Customer and Product Data Act 2025 becomes law.
6. April 2025: Cabinet designates banking and, at this stage, backs a 5-cent payment cap.
7. October 2025: Regulations land; banks are barred from charging accredited requestors.
8. 1 December 2025: Regulated open banking starts at the four large banks; MBIE opens accreditation.
9. June 2026: Large banks are expected to start switching off suboptimal access for covered use cases; Kiwibank’s payment duty begins.
10. 1 December 2026: Kiwibank must share account information on the same terms.
11. 1 June 2027: Designated banks must offer regulated services across a wider set of digital channels, including business, subject to the later amendments.

The remaining squeeze is the gap between those dates. A budgeting tool that needs two years of transactions from a rural credit union still has no designated API. A payroll product that lives in business internet banking waits until 1 June 2027. An accredited intermediary can move its big-four consumer traffic onto free regulated calls, then watch the old login-sharing path close under it before the long tail of banks and account types is inside the Act.

The 2024 fight was about who set the price of a call. The 2026 market is about who is allowed to make one. Banks lost a tariff. Accredited firms gained a free pipe and a levy invoice. Everyone still outside the register is on a clock the Commission has already started.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does New Zealand open banking accreditation last?

Accreditation is granted for 12 months. If a firm files a renewal on or before the expiry date, the accreditation stays in force until MBIE decides the renewal. Renewal fees are $1,700 for an intermediary class and $1,000 for a non-intermediary class, excluding GST, and the annual levy is billed on that cycle.

Do smaller New Zealand banks have to offer open banking APIs?

No. Only the five largest banks are required data holders: ANZ, ASB, BNZ and Westpac from 1 December 2025, and Kiwibank on its staged 2026 dates. Other banks and non-bank deposit-takers may opt in by giving notice to MBIE. The Commission has said several smaller banks expect to become accredited requestors themselves but do not have firm plans for when they will offer APIs or opt in as data holders.

Can banks charge customers for open banking data sharing?

No. Alongside the ban on charging accredited requestors, the rules stop data-holder banks from charging the customer when an accredited firm makes the request. The customer still has to give explicit authorisation, and only accredited requestors carrying MBIE’s trust mark can sit in that flow.

Which sector is next after banking for New Zealand’s consumer data right?

Electricity. The government has confirmed a retail electricity designation under the same Act, with regulations and standards to be built through 2026 and the regime expected to start around mid-2027. Telecommunications and insurance have been discussed as later candidates, not as live designations.

What is the difference between an intermediary and a non-intermediary accredited requestor?

A non-intermediary requests data or payments for its own customers. An intermediary does the same for someone else’s customers under contract, which is how a connector such as Akahu serves dozens of apps from one accreditation. A firm may hold both classes; if it applies for both in one filing, only the higher fee is payable.