In whichever year, decade, century or millennium the decision was made, it has always taken guts to up sticks and decide to call New Zealand home. We were never the near neighbour, the obvious choice or even simply where the winds took us. All our very earliest settlers had to abandon being swept along by the warm and comfortable trade winds of the Pacific and instead, fight their way south, purposefully heading for wilder, emptier oceans.
We might have a lot of them, but sheep we are not. And so we have a maverick streak – an inbuilt, youthful desire to avoid the predictable, and the tried-and-true, and to find our own path. This is what Kiwibank was born from. We weren’t comfortable simply falling in line and mindlessly following the warm currents of the money flow of the multinationals. Nor were we created in a time of financial privilege and steeped tradition of marbled columns and mahogany boardrooms. Kiwibank was created right here, of us, in an era of 24/7, Huffer, Icebreaker, FaceTime, good coffee, bad television, Trade Me, Google, Grand Theft Auto, Gollum and grabaseat.
And so we started a revolution. A revolution to bring the independent Kiwi spirit to banking. Today we’re all part of a bank that was created to make Kiwis better off, to empower the spirit of independence and to find ways to help it flourish. We are free to be pioneers, we are empowered to be bold and it’s celebrated to be different.
That’s the Joy of Independence.
Every Revolution Needs a Leader.
