RBNZ stress test shows banks resilient to IT failure and global shocks

The big banks including Westpac and ANZ were tested. (Image: Getty)

Mon, 03 Nov 2025

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s latest round of bank stress testing added a new scenario to explore what would happen if a major strategic project, such as a large-scale IT upgrade, were to fail. Each of the five participating banks were required to develop a severe but plausible scenario that led to this failure.The scenario was then modelled over a six-year horizon and the disruption had to be severe enough to put the bank on negative credit watch from rating agencies.Earning warning responseOverall, the entities assessed a low l...

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