The FSC is looking ahead to 2024 and was delighted to host our popular Outlook event on Wednesday 31 January 2024, with keynotes from the new Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs Hon Andrew Bayly, FMA's Chief Executive, Samantha Barrass, followed by a panel discussion with the country's leading Chief Economists to provide commentary on what is coming up for the country this year.
This was an inaugural address from Minister Bayly to the financial industry, and we heard his priorities and vision in his new role.
Outlook 2024 is kindly supported by MinterEllisonRuddWatts.
Watch the replays below.
Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs Andrew Bayly + fireside chat with FSC CEO Richard Klipin
FMA's Chief Executive Samantha Barrass keynote address + fireside chat
Chief Economist Panel with Sharon Zollner, Mark Lister and Kelvin Davidson Panel Discussion
FSC Regulatory and Economic Outlook 2024 - full video
Hon Andrew Bayly is the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing, and Minister of Statistics. He is the MP for Port Waikato and was first elected to Parliament in 2014 to represent the then-seat of Hunua.
Andrew was born in Whanganui into a farming family. He graduated with a Bachelor of Business Studies from Massey University and qualified as a chartered accountant. He worked for the Southpac corporate finance team in New Zealand before transferring to London where he worked for a number of years. After returning to New Zealand, he co-founded a merchant bank, Cranleigh. He has also owned many other businesses and been a director to a range of organisations.
Andrew has been a member of Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure select committee and is also Co-Chair of the Middle East/Africa Parliamentary Friendship Group and Co-Chair of the Antarctic Parliamentary Group, which he established in 2019.
Samantha first arrived in New Zealand at the age of 7 with her parents and sister from the UK. She is a dual New Zealand / UK national. She grew up in Christchurch and attended Christchurch Girls’ High School before attending the University of Canterbury (B.Com (Econ) 1987) and Victoria University of Wellington (BCA. Hons (Econ) 1988).
She joined the Reserve Bank of New Zealand as an economist in 1988. In 1993 she moved to London to attend the London School of Economics where she was awarded an MSc in Economics. In 1995 she joined the Financial Services Authority in London (now the Financial Conduct Authority) which was responsible for the prudential and conduct of business regulation of the UK financial markets. She served successively as an Economist, a Supervisor in the Markets and Exchanges Division and a Manager in Conduct of Business Regulation.
Between 2005 and 2009, Samantha was a Director at the London Investment Banking Association where she worked on behalf of investment banks to develop and implement strategic advocacy programmes with the UK, EU and other national governments and national and international regulatory bodies. In 2009 Samantha took her regulatory knowledge and skills from the financial to the legal sector when she was appointed as an Executive Director at the Solicitors Regulation Authority with responsibility for leading the SRA’s work to transform the regulation of solicitors. This was the most significant element of the transformation of the legal services market in England and Wales enabled by the UK Legal Services Act 2007. It included implementing a new regulatory regime allowing for non-lawyer investment into, and ownership and control of law firms.
2014 saw Samantha return to financial services when she was appointed Chief Executive of the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission. Samantha led the prudential and conduct regulation of a complex financial services sector that primarily exports financial services and which represents around 25% of Gibraltar’s economy.
This period was characterised by the significant global and EU regulatory reform in the wake of the 2007/08 financial crisis. Between 2014 and 2019 the GFSC secured the confidence of governments and regulators in key export markets that Gibraltar was implementing these reforms in substance as well as form.
During this period the Commission also developed and implemented the first comprehensive international regulatory regime for firms using distributed ledger technology to hold and transfer value. These successes required strong connections with regulators in other markets, particularly in the UK and Europe but also further afield. They also saw the Commission expand substantially in terms of staffing and capability.
Between 2018 and 2019 Samantha, with the support and approval of the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission’s Board, served as a member of PwC (UK)’s Public Interest Body, responsible for independent oversight of PwC (UK)’s approach to protecting the public interest in its activities in the UK economy. Samantha stood down from this body on her appointment as Chief Executive of the Business Banking Resolution Service (BBRS) in November 2019.
As CEO of the BBRS, Samantha was appointed to lead the establishment of a non-statutory alternative dispute resolution scheme for banks and their larger SME customers. The scheme was a response to concerns, which began to surface as a result of the financial crisis, over the way banks had treated their SME customers. Because the scheme did not have statutory backing, the task involved complex negotiations with banks and the SME sector, and attracted close political and regulatory scrutiny. The scheme was launched in February 2021 with business body and political cross-party support in all nations of the UK. Having led the establishment of the BBRS, Samantha stood down to take a planned break, including taking time to pursue her interest in theatre.
Sharon joined the ANZ Economics team in 2010 and became Chief Economist in late 2017. She started her career as a macroeconomist at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand in 1998, and has also worked at the Central Bank of Norway.
Mark is Investment Director for Craigs Investment Partners, and is a member of the company's Executive Committee.
He joined Craigs in 2004, having worked in the electricity sector before this. He started as an equity analyst, before leading the Private Wealth Research team from 2007 until 2022 and focusing on economics, portfolio strategy and investor education.
He spends much of his time engaging with a wide range of clients across the Craigs network, interacting with media organisations, as well as supporting other departments and the broader Craigs leadership team.
Kelvin is well practiced in applying macroeconomic trends and data to the property market, both residential and commercial.
In his role with CoreLogic Kelvin’s focus is on keeping up to date with what’s going on in the property market and continually finding different ways for viewing and interpreting it. Kelvin’s economics background means that he knows his way around a spreadsheet, but more importantly he always puts more emphasis on providing the key insights and telling a story, whether his audience be clients or the media.
Kelvin holds a Bachelor of Commerce with Honours majoring in Economics from University of Canterbury.