Reserve Bank of New Zealand receives Central Banking Awards for climate stress testing and information management uplift

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has received two Central Banking Awards 2025, winning the Green Award for its climate stress testing work and the Corporate Services Initiative Award for its Information Management Uplift programme. The climate stress testing programme models the impact of hypothetical, severe but plausible climate-related scenarios, aimed at ensuring regulated banks remain sufficiently capitalised while continuing to support the economy. The Reserve Bank highlighted that the approach reflects New Zealand-specific risks, including impacts on key sectors, extreme weather and insurance retreat, and noted that other central banks in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region have shown interest in its bespoke design. The Information Management Uplift is a multi-phase digital transformation designed to address system and process silos and consolidate data and information into a single toolset, with judges citing a data and information strategy supported by increased cloud use, data governance and a people-first implementation approach. The Reserve Bank said its data and information transformation work began in 2022 and remains ongoing, with further phases planned to continue improving information management and related capabilities.