Briefs: NZ joins AIIB; Price to head Smith's office; BNZ cuts rate more than OCR; and more

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key announced New Zealand would invest NZ$125 million in capital over five years in China's Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, saying he was satisfied it had good governance provisions in place. He said China would control less than 50 per cent of the investment bank. "We are quite comfortable that it's going to be professionally managed and the projects are going to be both selected and administered and reported in a professional and world class way," Key told his weekly post-cabinet news conference.

The Chief Executive of ANZ NZ's UDC Finance, Tessa Price, has been appointed as the Chief of Staff to the office of ANZ Group Chief Executive Mike Smith. Price has been the CEO of UDC Finance, which is New Zealand's largest equipment and vehicle financier for small to medium business, since 2012. ANZ NZ said it would announce a new UDC CEO "in due course." Price has worked at Commonwealth Bank, American Express and at ANZ's Esanda.

Finance company FlexiGroup has launched an issue of asset-backed securities, seeking A$285 million of funding. Flexi ABS Trust 2015-2 is backed by a pool of more than 140,000 consumer loans originated by FlexiGroup's Certegy Ezi-Pay division. Close to half (43.1 per cent) of the loans are for solar equipment, 17.9 per cent for jewellery and four per cent for fitness equipment. The average contract size is $1976. Certegy delinquencies greater than 30 days have historically tracked below three per cent.

Ernst & Young and the University of Technology Sydney have joined forces to establish a data analytics research centre focusing on financial risk, cybercrime and customer interaction. EY financial services leader Andrew Price said in a statement that the parties would work together "to help financial services organisations tackle the challenges they face in a digital and connected market." EY and UTS will work on research projects, consulting and the design of graduate programs aimed at supporting the future needs of financial services organisations.