BNZ wins Canstar small business banking award

Each year CANSTAR researches the small business banking offerings available from New Zealand financial institutions, in order to identify the financial institution it recognises as offering small businesses the best value. Best value is determined by reviewing each institution’s loan and deposit products, as well as other institutional factors that can drive success. This includes branch coverage, the availability of relationship managers, online banking functionality and the education resources offered to customers. This year CANSTAR is delighted to congratulate Bank of New Zealand (BNZ), yet again, on winning the Best Value New Zealand Small Business Bank award.

"This is the fourth year in a row that BNZ has taken the Best Value New Zealand Small Business Banking award and it’s a real vindication of the consistently strong value it offers to the small business community," said CANSTAR General Manager - New Zealand, Derek Bonnar. "Our assessment methodology is comprehensive; we look for outstanding value across loans, deposits and credit cards as well as strong institutional features including high business relationship manager numbers, great online banking functionality and education resources. Each year we continue to be impressed with the BNZ offering."

Some of the BNZ standout features include:

Loans - BNZ’s overdraft loan in particular caught the eye of the CANSTAR Research team due to its flexibility: it has no fixed term, 24 hour access is provided via online banking and ATMs, there is no penalty for early lump sum repayments and it is flexible with regards to loan purpose.

Cards - For business owners who pay their credit card in full each month, BNZ’s GlobalPlus Business credit card offers a number of card facilities including unauthorised transaction insurance to protect against employee fraud, free international business travel insurance, flexibility on card limits, fee waivers for spends over $24,000 half-yearly and the ability to earn rewards points and status credits with Airpoints.

For business owners who tend to revolve a credit card debt, BNZ offer the Business First Visa Lite credit card, with a low interest rate, a comparatively low annual fee of $60 per card, 55 interest free days, unauthorised transaction insurance and a low minimum monthly repayment.

Deposits - BNZ’s new TotalMoney for Business account has topped the deposit accounts mainly due to its flexibility across all three profiles assessed for the CANSTAR award. It gives users the ability to set aside GST and income/provisional tax, allocate money to pay suppliers and monthly bills and keep specific accounts for specific uses. It also offers a doubled interest rate over the standard on balances over $100,000 and unlimited monthly transactions for a comparatively low monthly fee of $10.

"Impressive institutional factors include BNZ’s 178 bank branches across New Zealand and their Relationship Managers being available 72 hours weekly," said Mr Bonnar. "BNZ also offer excellent online banking functionality and an impressive range of business education tools."

Responding to the award, Harry Ferreira, BNZ Head of Small Business, said that the role of BNZ goes far beyond providing transactional banking for small businesses. "It’s about providing support seven days of the week, access to networks, connections and advice to enable business growth and helping our customers be good with money," he said. In addition to one-on-one assistance, Mr Ferreira said that the small business online resources are proving popular. "We have some great online resources available to our customers, including the ‘Business Wire’," he said. "This is a regular newsletter we send our customers, giving them access to helpful insights into current business trends and opinions as well as articles written by our customers about their businesses. It also gives us the ability to showcase offers which we or our partner organisations have made available to BNZ customers."