pn632. Our own Kiwibank, not Aussie owned. "It's time to stop being Aussie-owned. Are you unknowingly backing Australia?"

With so much of our economy owned by Australians, it must be time for a re-think.

 "New Zealanders' desire to beat Australia is ingrained – almost from birth. In rugby, racehorses, barista coffee and race relations – we like to think we are better than the Aussies. Hell, we even promote the idea that our politicians are somehow superior," writes Mark Jennings in Newsroom*. (Click to read the whole article).

"Kiwibank CEO, Steve Jurkovich ... knows there is a deep well of patriotism to drink from but using it against the Aussie banks has been more of a scribble on a whiteboard than an actual strategy.

"After a year in the job, Jurkovich, and his acting head of marketing, Simon Hofmann, are about to put the rivalry card firmly down on the table. A new advertising campaign will roll out shortly, timed it seems, to coincide with a major sporting event in Japan." He asked a hundred businesspeople recently to

"Put your hands up if you are going to back the Wallabies to win the Rugby World Cup? Didn’t think you were; so, we are a bit confused as to why you back them for your banking”. 

Why support the Australian banks that take $5 billion profits from NZ every year?

That's a good question that New Zealanders, individuals as well as businesspeople, should be asking themselves.  Think what an injection of $5 billion would do for our economy.

"It's time to stop being Aussie-owned.  Are you unknowingly backing Australia?"

I make no apology for urging readers to  use Kiwbank.

-- ACW 

* Newsroom was launched in 2017. Two of its four sponsors are the University of Auckland and Victoria University of Wellington.