The latest event in our Emerge series for Waikato's young professionals took place in March with Shane Marsh from Dosh, New Zealand's first digital wallet.
With a lot of talk recently in the news about banking, digital disruption, crypto and blockchain, it was very timely to have Shane Marsh, co-founder of New Zealand’s first digital wallet Dosh, talk at our latest Emerge event for Waikato young professionals on March 23.
The global trends in financial innovation and how far behind New Zealand is, how Dosh is disrupting financial services in New Zealand, and Dosh’s startup journey and what it takes to challenge a market, were all covered off.
Watch a replay of the panel discussion on our video platform, or read a summary of the event below.
We are grateful for the support of McCaw Lewis Lawyers in sponsoring our Emerge series.
Shane began by talking about the three big trends happening in the world of global financial services over the last year: the saturation of smartphones; the removal of barriers to entry in the banking sector following the 2008 financial crisis, also known as open banking or CDR; and the rollout of real-time payment networks – the ability to pay someone 24/7, instantly. In New Zealand, the plan from Payments NZ is for kiwis to be able to do this in 2030.
New Zealand used to be world-leaders in payment solutions with EFTPOS, but that was all the way back in the 1980s. According to Shane, in his estimates “New Zealand is around 10 years behind Australia, and 15 years behind the likes of Singapore and the UK” when it comes to digital payments.
Shane also touched on the fact all our major banks are foreign-owned, and the amount of profit they make which has been in the news recently. Bank profit is currently $7.6 billion a year, with the four major banks making $6 billion of this – or $2,000 per customer.
According to Shane, "it's up to the Reserve Bank to make changes" if we want to change the status quo. One problem in New Zealand is the high barriers to entry into the financial services market as the Reserve Bank has a $30 million capital requirement for anyone wanting to use 'bank' in their name. In Australia & Singapore it's $15 million, and in the UK it's $1 million.
Shane explained the reason for this is "the Reserve Bank's objective for New Zealanders is not good value, it's financial stability."
Watch the full event on our video platform. Our thanks to McCaw Lewis Lawyers for sponsoring the Emerge series.
