Māori Authority chair Matthew Tukaki says a Māori bank that would lend to Māori building on multi-owner Māori land is extremely viable.
"What we have here is the ability to start our own cooperative, our own institution," he told teomaori.news today. "My aspiration is to allow our people to access capital to build on their land."
This comes after Māori who were trying to build on Māori whenua found they aren’t able to secure loans from the big banks to build unless they meet specific specifications and even then aren’t likely to be approved.
The large banks and institutions see the risk of building on Māori land to be too great, which prevents Māori from accessing capital.
Under the Te True Whenua Act 1993 banks cant use Māori freehold land as security because it can’t be removed from Māori ownership and cant be sold.
Tukaki says establishing an iwi bank has been a Māori Party policy since 2017 and the idea of a Māori bank can be tracked all the way back to the 1920’s.
'Perfect opportunity'
“There is nothing like the present in terms of being Māori and being able to proposition and put things forward and see them come to fruition. I think that the timing is fantastic.”
Meanwhile, Māori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi says an iwi-led bank would work "because it would allow our people to have a lot more access to capital”.
“Māori don’t have access to capital but everyone else does.”