The Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1989 requires banks to keep certain transaction information about deposits and withdrawals for seven years. Some banks keep information for longer than this. Some allow customers to access transaction records stretching back many years through online banking. Banks don’t have to keep physical copies; electronic copies are sufficient.
Non-transaction records
Banks also hold a lot of non-transaction records such as applications, phone conversations, internal notes and customer correspondence. They do not have to hold such records for any set period, although we expect banks to hold critical information about communications with customers for a suitable period of time. Again, electronic rather than hard-copy versions are acceptable. Thus, a loan is still enforceable even if a bank no longer has an original copy signed by a customer.
Customer rights
Under the Privacy Act 2020, you can seek copies of personal information held by your bank about you.
Your bank must tell you within 20 working days whether it will give you the information you have sought, and explain why if it declines. A bank cannot supply information it no longer holds. If a bank has the information and you are entitled to it, the bank should supply it within a reasonable timeframe.
The Privacy Commissioner’s website has information about your right to access personal information.
We expect a bank to carry out a proper search to establish whether it has the information you have sought. It is not sufficient for a bank to say it is unable to provide information simply because it is no longer required by law to hold it.
A bank is allowed to charge a fee to help cover the cost of supplying the information you have sought.
How we can help
If your bank refuses to give you information, we may be able to review whether it has good grounds for withholding it.
If your bank says it no longer holds the information you are seeking and you want a third party to verify that, we can liaise with your bank to ensure it has properly checked its records. If we are satisfied the bank has done this, and it no longer has to hold the information, then we cannot help you further.
We may not be able to help you if your complaint relates to old records. That’s because the rules under which we operate do not allow us to look into a complaint if you became aware of, or should reasonably have become aware of, a bank’s action or inaction more than six years ago.
You can seek copies of your personal information held by your bank. Your bank has 20 working days to tell you whether it will give you the information you have sought, and explain why if it declines.
Bank’s contact was legitimate communication, not marketing
Nathaniel said that in 2010 he asked the bank not to contact him or his wife to try to sell them its products and services. Twelve years later, in August 2022, the bank called him one evening offering to review his banking products and services to ensure they remained suited to his financial circumstances. Nathaniel replied that he did not want the bank to call him with such offers and that he had explicitly opted out of all contact years ago. A month later, his wife received an email from the bank containing an identical offer.
CASE 2Bank’s inspection referral did not expose it to liability for “leaky” house repairs
In early 2018, Joy and Blaine asked the bank for a loan to buy a house with monolithic cladding. The bank said houses with this type of cladding were prone to leaks, so it would need a satisfactory weather-tightness report before approving their loan application. The bank gave the couple the name of a builder who had carried out a weather-tightness inspection for another customer. They hired the builder to inspect the house, submitted his inspection report, received the loan and bought the house.
CASE 3Records draw blank, but customer should have known sooner
Sam lived in New Zealand for a few years in the late 1990s. He had a savings account and a 90-day term deposit of $60,000. His instructions were to reinvest the money at the end of each term at the prevailing interest rate. He left his money with the bank when he left New Zealand.
Privacy & confidentiality
Banks have a legal duty to protect the confidentiality of existing and former customers. Banks also have obligations under the Privacy Act 2020, which contains 13 privacy principles about personal information. In the banking sector, these principles govern:
banks’ collection and storage of customer information
customers’ rights to access and correct information about themselves
the disclosure of …
Financial abuse of the elderly
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misusing or stealing from the bank accounts of those in their care
pressuring a person to sign a legal document, such as a guarantee or mortgage
using a power of attorney in a way that is not in the interests of the person who granted it.
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Anti-money laundering - changes to banking
The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 obliges New Zealand’s financial institutions and businesses to detect and deter money laundering and the financing of terrorism. The Act, which came into full force in 2013, also requires banks to gather more information about customers than previously. This can be inconvenient to some customers, but is a legal requiremen…
Updated December 2024