Winston Peters announces NZ First policy to buy back BNZ

Sunday, 17 May 2026

NZ First leader Winston Peters says his party would buy back the Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) and merge it with Kiwibank if it was returned to power after the election.

The party would also make KiwiSaver enrolment compulsory at birth, with the Crown making an automatic contribution of $1000 for New Zealand citizens.

Peters made the two policy announcements for the 2026 election at an event in West Auckland on Sunday afternoon.

The NZ First leader said the BNZ would be bought back from the National Bank of Australia and merged with Kiwibank to form the National Bank of New Zealand (NBNZ).

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He said it would be a fully Crown-owned, commercially run bank ‒ similar in size to the other three Australian owned banks ‒ Westpac, ANZ and ASB.

A policy document said that the buyback would not be funded from the operating budget.

Instead it would be financially backed by long dated crown debt, a limited tranche of NZ future fund and ACC investment, NZ sovereign banking bond insurance marketed to retail and KiwiSaver investors and the retention of Kiwibank’s existing capital base.

With regard to the KiwiSaver policy, Peters said it would run parallel to the party’s campaign policy to increase the employee and employer contributions to 8% initially and eventually to 10%.

Peters said it was “plain common sense”.

“This is a once-per-lifetime investment that compounds for decades.This will be the start of the nest egg for something that we will call the KiwiSaver Generation.”