1954: BNZ Drive-In Bank

December 16, 2024

By AHNZ

Today in New Zealand history, 16 December, 1954, our first drive-in bank: BNZ on the corner of Vivian and Taranaki Streets, Wellington CBD. “New Zealand’s first Motor Bank.”

Trust something like this to come from the Everest Dignity Culture era of our history. It was a High time, a “First Turning,” the “Summer Afternoon” of our post-war good old days where anything was possible. We were productive, proud, we had a strong national identity. A drive-through bank was something cool people like we New Zealanders deserved.

Other branches followed suit and this Vivian street branch kept on having its Motor Bank until 1987 so it was no gimmick.

BNZ Heritage’s website and Meta page shared this history however they have redacted their webpage on the topic. I wonder why. Ref. https://www.bnzheritage.co.nz/archives/story/motor-bank-drive-in-banking

My strong suspicion is that BNZ quietly pulled their historical association with motorcars because it’s no longer on-brand for them in 2024. Fortunately the page is archived on the Wayback Machine here.

As recently as October 2024 the BNZ were sharing their 1954 film of the Motor Bank with the caption: The following footage was recently digitized from an old 8mm cine film found in the archive and dated 1954.

Yet in the Holiday News Dump of December 2024 one of the items is that the BNZ (now Australian-owned) is now opposed to the motorcar. At least, conventional ones.

“On the 16 December 1954 BNZ opened NZ’s first drive in ‘Motor bank’. Situated on Vivian Street, Wellington customers of the bank were able to conduct their banking business from the comfort of their own car. The teller was behind armor plate glass and communication was through a two-way speaker. A sliding draw allowed exchanges between the teller and car.” – BNZ Heritage, Meta (16 December 2022)

“On the 16 December 1954 BNZ opened New Zealand’s first Motor bank. The Motor bank enabled bank customers to conduct their everyday banking transactions from the comfort of their car using the specially designed Teller kiosks….The Motor bank was opened by the Mayor of Wellington, Mr R. L . Macalister who stated ‘I feel that I am helping to make banking history in New Zealand’ as he cut the ribbon…Further Motorbanks were then introduced around the dominion…In January 1987 the Vivian Street Motorbank was closed..” – bnzheritage.co.nz, Wayback Machine

“It’s been saying to customers who run or are associated with the petrol, the retailing and distribution of fossil fuels that they will not lend them any more money and they wish them to have paid back any loans they have by 2030…Bank of New Zealand, a subsidiary of the NIB in Australia,… So, some lanyard-wearing middle manager at BNZ can put a tick in their box at the next, I don’t know, diversity climate conference they have.” – Leaine Pilgrim On BNZ Cracking Down On The Petrol Industry, The Platform (13 December, 2024)/Youtube(2024)

“Gloriavale has lost its fight to keep banking with the Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) after two years of legal disputes. In July 2022, BNZ gave notice of its intention to terminate its banking relationship with various companies and entities associated with the Christian Church Community Trust, also known as the Gloriavale Christian Community.” – 1 News (December 2024)

“Federated Farmers asks the Commerce Commission to investigate bank ‘cartel-like’ climate goals, BNZ tells petrol station owners it won’t offer any new loans to the sector” – Interest.co.nz (December 2024)

The Bank of New Zealand’s heritage page is probably important to them as a way to hold on to nostalgia branding for Kiwis. Reputation has always been important to banks and they have had large budgets to promote those reputations. As a comment to AHNZ put it, early on in our history “The fashion for banks was to look like temples from Greco-Roman antiquity. The idea was to create an aura of stability. Like the BNZ Wellington Branch, the banking chamber was designed to overawe the customers. Nobody falls for that nonsense anymore hence the banks are in corporate environments and The Old Bank Arcade and Logan Brown are wowing consumers.” Ref. Ron Shaw to AHNZ (2024)

The branding I prefer, naturally enough, is the Who Are We campaign of 1990 that branded the BNZ with connection, unity, and a love of our country. Ref. 1990: Who Are We, AHNZ

In the mid-2020s mainstream branding, which BNZ is embracing, involves more Politically Correct values. Hence, their de-banking of unpopular customers. For example, Gloriavale Christian Community. And, businesses related to the oil industry as that is seen as the best Climate Change virtue signals you can make. They are pulling the plug on customers who run our petrol stations!

Hence, instead of sharing the BNZ’s video about the 1954 Motor Bank I re-uploaded it to Youtube. As they’ve pulled their article they might very well redact the video too as being off-brand. My version cut out the black space and, although anachronistic, replaces the silent audio with Murray Grindlay’s 1990 BNZ strumming¹.

A big part of why AHNZ exists is to preserve our history in the face of people and corporations who try very hard to erase it².

—
1. This audio was extracted from the old averts, the vocal track removed. AHNZ (2024)
– In hindsight it’s a fairly apparent rip of Eres tú, Mocedades (1973) which would probably get Len Potts done for copyright these days…

2. (The INTJ life choose me)

Image ref. Design for the ‘Motor Bank’, BNZ Heritage, Meta (2018)
Image ref. Old BNZ logo, BNZ Heritage, Meta (2018)

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