New Zealand Finance Company

Under New Zealand law, a company cannot call itself a bank or include ‘bank’, ‘banking’ or similar words in its name without being a registered bank.  Registered banks are supervised by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and must satisfy stringent capital adequacy and other requirements.

However, it is not necessary to be registered as a bank to offer virtually all the services generally offered by a bank (see: page 26  New Zealand Financial Sector Regulation http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/research/bulletin/2002_2006/2003dec66_4mortlock.pdf).   These include, for example, taking deposits from the public, providing accounts and issuing credit cards.

 Where services are offered to customers in  New Zealand the rules under the Commerce Act 1983 (NZ) and other legislation will apply.  For example, a prospectus must be provided when issuing securities to the public (eg, issuing shares or raising loans).  BUT, where the customers are outside New Zealand these rules will generally not apply.

 Companies that offer bank like services but which are not registered as banks are generally called finance companies.  We can establish a New Zealand finance company for you.  As well as the services we offer in relation to all companies we incorporate we can provide other related services (eg, provision of a virtual office) as required.