In the latest move from the Reserve Bank’s rollout of the Deposit Takers Act (DTA), it has begun consultations on six draft standards and a package of crisis-preparedness policies for deposit takers.
The DTA is set to be fully implemented by December 2028. The new framework will oversee the regulation of all banks and non-bank deposit takers (NBDTs) in New Zealand under a single prudential regime.
“The New Zealand financial system is resilient, and deposit takers are required to have strong capital buffers. Despite these safeguards, international experience shows us that failures can occur and we need to be prepared,” RBNZ Acting Assistant Governor Financial Stability Angus McGregor says.
The RBNZ is consulting on six draft standards with accompanying guidance relating to:
- Capital
- Internal Models (requirements relevant only to deposit takers that use the Internal Ratings-Based model)
- Operational Resilience
- Outsourcing
- Disclosure (remaining aspects not covered in tranche 2 consultation)
- Related Party Exposures
The Reserve Bank says this is the final tranche of DTA draft standards and guidance, which will be issued in 2027. Crisis preparedness standards will be issued separately in 2028, according to the central bank.
All DTA standards except those relating to crisis preparedness will be issued by 31 May 2027 and come into effect on 1 December 2028.
Both consultations are open for 12 weeks, with submissions due by 5pm on Friday 11 September.
The Reserve Bank is not seeking feedback on the broader policy proposals, as the central bank has already consulted on the policy and final policy decisions, which were published in mid-2025 here:
'Evolution' of the OBR
In its background note about the DTA Standards exposure drafts, the RBNZ says the Crisis Preparedness Standard and the Continuity of Access to Deposits (CoAD) Standard, which was previously referred to as the Open Banking Resolution (OBR) Prepositioning Standard, are currently scheduled to be issued in late 2028.
Introduced in 2013, OBR is a tool that could be used if a deposit taker fails, with the aim of limiting disruption to the economy. In 2022, the Reserve Bank said it would review OBR policy settings once the depositor compensation scheme is launched.
The Reserve Bank says the new crisis management framework released for consultation on Wednesday is an “evolution” of the OBR and will deliver improved crisis management capability.
Under the new framework, the Reserve Bank wants to place more emphasis on pre-positioning the full resolution process, not just providing immediate access to certain accounts.
“While the OBR policy was designed to support stability, longer-term resolution solutions were to be decided after a crisis had taken place. The pre-positioned solutions in the new framework should reduce the time required for resolving a failed deposit taker,” the document says.
“The OBR policy also involved a ‘freeze’ of a portion of the money in customers’ transactional bank accounts while resolution was carried out. We now think this is unlikely to be necessary so are no longer asking deposit takers to pre-position the systems to deliver this transactional account ‘freeze’.”
The Reserve Bank says its crisis preparedness package supplements protections under the Depositor Compensation Scheme (DCS) and other standards developed as part of implementing the DTA.
The requirements proposed in the crisis preparedness package include:
- Recovery planning and resolution pre-positioning, meaning deposit takers establish contingency plans and internal capabilities for dealing with severe financial stress
- The design of loss-absorbing capacity (LAC) instruments being introduced for domestic systemically important banks (ANZ NZ, ASB, BNZ and Westpac NZ) following the review of key capital settings in 2025
According to the Reserve Bank, the crisis preparedness policies are designed to enable the orderly resolution of a deposit-taker failure. This approach is intended to protect critical customer services and avoid the use of public funds.
“Having a crisis management framework in place before a failure occurs is essential for reducing economic damage and disruption for New Zealanders,” McGregor says.
The Deposit Takers Act allows the Reserve Bank to make prudential ‘standards’, or secondary legislation. The Act is behind the Deposit Compensation Scheme, which was introduced in 2025 and insures deposits at banks and other licensed deposit takers for up to $100,000 per person or institution.
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