Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Jeff King: MyMahi founder on the changes to child banking requirements

Transcript

Jeff King: MyMahi founder on the changes to child banking requirements · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: Changes to the Anti Money Laundering Act will make it
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  Speaker 1: easier for parents to open bank accounts for the kids. Now,
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  Speaker 1: adults and children don't have to verify their address with
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  Speaker 1: opening a new account at a local branch. Jeff King
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  Speaker 1: is the founder of my MOHI. This is a platform
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  Speaker 1: to support children with banking education and it joins me.
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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 1: Good morning to you, Jeff. Thank you for joining us today.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning, thank you.
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  Speaker 1: Was it a bit of overkill to crackdown on kids
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  Speaker 1: having banking?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a little un sure. There's it's a little
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  Speaker 2: scant on detail at the moment, but I think anything
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  Speaker 2: that puts a focus on youth banking and the issues
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  Speaker 2: around it, I think it's got to be a good thing.
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  Speaker 1: Why were children's banking rules under the Anti Money Laundering Lor?
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  Speaker 1: Do you know?
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  Speaker 2: No, I've got an idea. And the interesting thing is,
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  Speaker 2: you know, you think back to you know, maybe twenty
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  Speaker 2: thirty years ago in New Zealand used to be so
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  Speaker 2: good at youth banking. Every kid in New Zealand had
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  Speaker 2: a bank account and all the rest of it. I
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  Speaker 2: don't know whether you remember it, but in my it
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  Speaker 2: was the postbook, et cetera, and everyone had had an account,
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  Speaker 2: and there was a report that came out from the
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  Speaker 2: Reserve Bank not so long ago into basic bank accounts
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  Speaker 2: and it talked about that as a factor, whereas today
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  Speaker 2: it's quite a different story. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely, Look that I had a bank account from five
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  Speaker 1: with the ASB. I also had a little plastic cash
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  Speaker 1: and you know, think to put MC coins in as well.
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  Speaker 1: And you know what, I'm still banking with the ASB
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  Speaker 1: with the same bank account number that I have from
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  Speaker 1: those days.
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  Speaker 2: So yeah, and a lot of people say that that's
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  Speaker 2: exactly right, But we've lost that tradition in New Zealand
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  Speaker 2: and I think if anything, you know, we did a
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  Speaker 2: survey two years ago that showed our audience within the
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  Speaker 2: schools that we had, you know, thirty percent of young
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  Speaker 2: people didn't have an account.
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  Speaker 1: So has this been something people have been calling for?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it has, and that's sort of the reason we're
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  Speaker 2: actually we ended up down this rabbit hole because schools
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  Speaker 2: reached out to us. We have a digital idea within
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  Speaker 2: my he think of a school id, like on a
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  Speaker 2: plastic card, but you know, one that students can use
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  Speaker 2: on their phone. And after we'd created that, we've got
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  Speaker 2: a bit of momentum with that, schools were starting to
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  Speaker 2: contact us to say, surely, you know, can you get
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  Speaker 2: into banking now? Can you help us use the idea
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  Speaker 2: card and mamahi to set up a bank account? And
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  Speaker 2: we thought, oh yeah, how hard can that be? Well goodness,
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  Speaker 2: three years later it was still battling on.
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  Speaker 1: You live in a country that loves bureaucracy, you know
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  Speaker 1: what I mean. But anyway, look, there are there any
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  Speaker 1: other sectors of our society that could do with a
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  Speaker 1: rationalization of these money laundering rules and access to a
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  Speaker 1: bank account?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, like I think that, you know, there's conversations and
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  Speaker 2: there was a submission about two weeks ago to the
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  Speaker 2: Reserve Bank around basic bank accounts and I'm assuming as
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  Speaker 2: part of that the changes around that basic bank account
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  Speaker 2: the aml CFT laws will be changed. But I think,
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  Speaker 2: you know, from looking at it from our space, obviously
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  Speaker 2: we work with schools and particularly teenagers. You know, they
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  Speaker 2: are probably the large group in the country and that
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  Speaker 2: will impact them the most. And the idea is if
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  Speaker 2: all young people had a bank account and left school
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  Speaker 2: with a bank account, I think New Zealand would be
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  Speaker 2: in a pretty good place, you know, particularly you look
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  Speaker 2: at young people fifteen sixteen looking to get their first
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  Speaker 2: part time jobs, they need an account, and at the moment,
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  Speaker 2: it's a really it's a difficult process to go to.
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  Speaker 1: How about homeless people or people just out of prison.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, and I think there's some work being
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  Speaker 2: done around that as well. But I think when you
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  Speaker 2: look at the statistics and look at the percentage, I
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  Speaker 2: think the greatest percentages is around youth banking, and I
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  Speaker 2: think the other one looking at this amendment that's been
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  Speaker 2: made in the release that came out yesterday, you know,
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  Speaker 2: in that Reserve Bank report that I mentioned earlier, you know,
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  Speaker 2: they said fifty percent of branches had closed in the
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  Speaker 2: last ten years. And if that's what it's looking like,
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  Speaker 2: what is banking and to look like in another five
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  Speaker 2: over ten years? It's not going to be in branch
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  Speaker 2: And I think the thing for us is we would
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  Speaker 2: like to see that there. You know, although this is
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  Speaker 2: a step in the good, in the right direction, we'd
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  Speaker 2: like to see more of a focus on digital. How
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  Speaker 2: do you digitally on board? You know, how do how
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  Speaker 2: do we make that the norm?
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  Speaker 1: When was the last time I ever used cash? You know,
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  Speaker 1: when we are always using the cards. The banking is critical,
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  Speaker 1: so I thank you so much. Jeff King, he is
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  Speaker 1: the founder of my Mahi. For more from Early Edition
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  Speaker 1: with Ryan Bridge.
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  Speaker 2: Listen live to news Talks it be from five am weekdays,
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  Speaker 2: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio