dc.description.abstract |
The Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) was established in Auckland in July 1861 by a group of local businessmen and grew rapidly. A decade later these men opened the Fiji Banking & Commercial Company Ltd (1873), the first bank in Fiji, to meet Auckland and Levuka's expanding business interests, especially those with a New Zealand connection. The BNZ purchased the institution in 1876 and remained in Fiji for 114 years until it sold its Pacific operations to the Australia & New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) in 1990. The BNZ became one of the oldest and most important of Fiji's financial institutions. It was significant both culturally and financially. While historians have considered the role played by missionaries, traders, planters and administrators in assessing the development of the region, little is known of the part played by the banking industry. The thesis redresses this imbalance and resurrects the history of banking in Fiji from obscurity, through the lens of one institution, the Bank of New Zealand (BNZ). The thesis investigates the BNZ's role in Fiji's economic development. The provision of capital is instrumental for development and by extending credit, so vital for economic growth, the BNZ helped to enable the economy of Fiji. Without its involvement, development in the nineteenth-century may have stagnated. It was the banker to merchants, planters, Fijians, chiefs, immigrants, churches, local businesses, corporate businesses and to the government. However, banking in Fiji was not straightforward: it was not immediately profitable, it was difficult to manage, and it was both risky and challenging. Nonetheless, the legacy of the BNZ survives in the sugar plantations, resorts, shops, industries, schools, businesses, houses and infrastructure which make Fiji what it is today. The Bank helped to define modern Fiji. But that is not the whole story. The thesis explores the BNZ in Fiji through a series of broadly chronological but thematically focused chapters and what also emerges is that Auckland's growth cannot be fully explained without considering its wider relationship with the Pacific. Auckland business interests did not stop at the Auckland docks. Those who founded the BNZ in Fiji were pioneers of commercial banking in the Pacific, and their actions had lasting implications for New Zealand and Fiji and beyond. |
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