2024-26 financial services reforms

About the reforms package

In January 2024, the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs announced plans to reform aspects of New Zealand’s financial services regulation.

These reforms aim to streamline the financial services regulatory landscape and remove unnecessary compliance costs currently imposed on financial services. The package of reforms will improve outcomes for consumers by ensuring New Zealanders can confidently access the financial products and services they need in a way that is safe.

Together, these reforms aim to provide regulatory clarity, protect vulnerable consumers and grow the economy.

Proposals to review the Financial Markets (Conduct of Institutions) Amendment Act 2022 and the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act 2003 [PDF 140KB]

Phase 1 – changes to regulations

Phase 1 of the reforms involved:

Regulations under the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act 2003 (CCCFA) to exempt:
- voluntary targeted rates schemes provided by local authorities from the CCCFA – such as loans to install insulation or heat pumps – without the need to pay additional compliance costs. This exemption took effect on 25 April 2024.
- entities whose primary business is non-financial goods and services, such as certain car dealers, from duplicative CCCFA reporting requirements. This exemption took effect on 25 April 2024.

Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Regulations 2024(external link) — New Zealand Legislation

Regulations under the CCCFA commencing 31 July 2024 to:
- revoke redundant regulations relating to COVID-19
- revoke prescriptive affordability requirements in the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Regulations 2004 that were intended to clarify what constitutes reasonable inquires to assess whether a borrower can make the repayments for a prospective loan without suffering substantial hardship.

Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Regulations (No 2) 2024(external link) — New Zealand Legislation

Amending the Responsible Lending Code to support lenders to responsibly ensure lending is affordable once the affordability regulations have been revoked.
Regulations to align certain jurisdictional rules for the four approved financial dispute resolution schemes.

Financial Service Providers (Rules for Approved Dispute Resolution Schemes) Regulations 2024(external link) — New Zealand Legislation

Read about the policies agreed by Cabinet for phase 1

In May 2024, Cabinet decided to remove detailed affordability requirements from the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Regulations 2004 and update guidance in the Responsible Lending Code to support lenders to meet their obligation to be satisfied by ‘reasonable inquiries’ that their lending is likely to be affordable. These changes took effect on 31 July 2024.

Public submissions on amending the Responsible Lending Code closed on 10 June 2024.

Proposed changes to the Responsible Lending Code

Responsible Lending Code - July 2024 [PDF 1.1MB]

Phase 2 – changes to primary legislation

Phase 2 reviewed various pieces of financial services legislation and resulted in three bills introduced in 2025:

The Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill – passed in June 2026
Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill(external link) — New Zealand Legislation
The Financial Markets Conduct Amendment Bill – not yet passed
Financial Markets Conduct Amendment Bill(external link) — New Zealand Legislation
The Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Amendment Bill – passed in June 2026
Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Amendment Bill(external link) — New Zealand Legislation

This followed a review of the laws for consumer credit, financial markets conduct regulation and dispute resolution.

Read the cabinet papers and associated minutes for introduction of the bills

Read about the original policies agreed by Cabinet

On 2 September 2024, Cabinet made a number of policy decisions to reform New Zealand’s financial services sector.

The Cabinet paper and accompanying appendices can be found below:

In November 2024, Cabinet approved some further policies relating to empowering provisions in the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act and the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act.

Read documents relevant to the retrospective change proposed by the Credit Bill

The Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill included an amendment with retrospective effect relating to consequences for lenders who failed between 2015 and 2019 to make disclosures as required. Given the amount of interest in this proposal, we published a bundle of documents that show how it was developed. These documents have already been released to individuals under the Official Information Act 1982, or are available elsewhere on this webpage.

Bundle of documents relevant to retrospective change to liability for historical disclosure breaches [PDF 20MB]

Read about amendment regulations that were developed to support effective implementation of the Credit Bill from 1 July 2026

In June 2026, after the Bill was passed, Cabinet approved amendments to a range of financial markets regulations to ensure the law as amended by the Bill will operate effectively. This includes:

carrying over exemptions from the need to be certified by the Commerce Commission, and
application fees Cabinet approved to facilitate cost-recovery by the FMA for licensing and decisions about proposed exemptions and declarations under the CCCFA.

The Cabinet material and MBIE’s cost recovery impact analysis for the new fees can be accessed below:

Previous consultation

MBIE publicly consulted on amendments to the CCCFA, including changes to the high-cost credit provisions, the Financial Markets (Conduct of Institutions) Act (CoFI) and financial markets conduct licensing, and financial dispute resolution. Submissions received informed advice to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs on reforms.

Public submissions closed on 19 June 2024.

Fit for purpose financial services reform

You can find the submissions here:

Financial services conduct regulation submissions

Financial dispute resolution submissions

Consumer credit legislation submissions