A Hawke's Bay credit union believes it can keep pace with, and challenge, the nation's biggest banks after overhauling the banking equivalent of a ship's engine room.
NZCU Baywide is just the second credit union to have launched a new core banking system that establishes a modern operational platform for the credit union's 30,000 customers.
Chief executive Gavin Earle said the "multi-million-dollar project", carried out in collaboration with the nation's nine credit unions, put NZCU Baywide on a par with the technology used by leading tier one banks.
"Financial services are all about speed and convenience and tailoring services to individuals. This investment now puts us on what is one of the best systems worldwide.
"It means we can bring products to market much more quickly, and that means we can be quite innovative in what we do. We can be much more efficient ... behind the scenes as well."