Kia ora tatou and welcome to the end of year issue of NZBN News. Learn about what we’ve been working on over the past few months, and some of our plans for 2017.

Over the last few months, we’ve added a number of new staff members, including Joanne Hogan as Programme Director and Beth Williams, who’ll be leading business adoption.

We’ve also been able to reflect on what we’ve learned from our many conversations with government agencies and businesses around New Zealand. This feedback has been particularly useful in helping us plan our work for 2017, including how we can best support public sector organisations and drive business adoption so that everyone can get the most out of NZBNs.

We’ve finalised a set of NZBN Guidelines that describe three progressive levels of NZBN implementation. These can be used by any organisation to set goals for implementing the NZBN, and to understand what steps they’ll need to take to reach these goals. We’re also using these guidelines to develop targeted support for organisations as they progress through the levels.

We’ve been talking to a number of businesses wanting to know what they can do to get the most out of NZBNs – from improving everyday business processes to opening up new opportunities for products, services and ways of working. These conversations, and our work with public sector organisations, have shown us we need a new way to describe the breadth of opportunities the NZBN offers. We’ve completed this new vision and will be sharing it – along with the new guidelines – with you in the New Year.

We’re really excited about where we’re headed and are always looking for ways to involve others in our thinking – so let us know if you have any ideas.

In November, start-up company 2Shakes went live with a digital sign-up system that saves professional advisers time by making it easier to set up authorities to act on their clients' behalf.

Using 2Shakes, bookkeepers can quickly set up service agreements, get client approval digitally and then let organisations like ACC and Inland Revenue know that they have authority to act on behalf of that business.

2Shakes uses the NZBN to pull business details into its system, so they don’t have to be entered manually. It can also be used by those receiving the authority forms to identify which businesses they’re dealing with. Early use of 2Shakes shows the sign-up process is even faster than expected, with a task that could otherwise take up to a couple of hours being completed in as little as a few minutes.

We congratulate the 2Shakes team, and are excited to see how they’ll continue to develop and grow their product.

Learn more on the 2Shakes website.

We’ll be taking a break over the summer – our offices will close on 23 December and reopen on 4 January 2017. Most of our online services, including Register searches, will still be available, but some will only be dealt with when we return. More about our holiday hours.

We wish you a peaceful and relaxing festive season and all the very best for 2017.