Government launches NZ Business Number
Government launches NZ Business Number
Economic
Development Minister Steven Joyce and Commerce Minister
Craig Foss today formally launched the New Zealand Business
Number (NZBN) at Xero in Wellington.
The NZBN is a core initiative of the Government’s Better Public Services for business (Result 9) programme, which is designed to make it easier for businesses to work with government. It is proposed that a single identifying number is assigned to all businesses, government agencies and commercial entities in New Zealand.
New Zealand Business Numbers were initially allocated to companies in December last year; and the Government today announced a month-long consultation on options for extending coverage to other businesses, including sole traders.
“Having a single business number means that by 2016 businesses will only have to provide government with their information once, which will automatically be shared across government agencies. That will make it easier, quicker, and less complicated for businesses dealing with the Government,” Mr Joyce says.
“While the initial allocation of NZBNs to companies is a significant step towards making it easier for them to work with government, around half of all New Zealand businesses are not companies. Public consultation on the NZBN will help us determine which businesses should have one and how those who don’t currently have a NZBN will be able to get one.”
Businesses have been requesting a universal identifier for many years and similar approaches are used in other developed countries, including Australia and Singapore.
Commerce Minister Craig Foss says it’s important that businesses provide feedback on how they would like to see the NZBN working for them.
“Ultimately the NZBN is all about ensuring businesses can spend more time on their business and less time having to interact with government. We would like to hear from businesses their views on who should be allocated an NZBN, what information should be linked, the rules around using the number and how to ensure information is protected,” Mr Foss says.
Feedback can be provided online at www.nzbn.business.govt.nz or sent to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).
The Ministry for Primary Industries, New Zealand Customs Service, Accident Compensation Corporation, Inland Revenue, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, Statistics New Zealand, Callaghan Innovation and MBIE have been working closely to implement a single identifying number for all businesses and are committed to the using of the New Zealand Business Number with business customers in future.
Consultation is open until 11 April 2014.
Questions & Answers
How will a business get a
NZBN?
Registered companies have already been allocated an
NZBN. We are now consulting on how and when to allocate
NZBNs to the other half of all New Zealand
Businesses.
Business representative groups have told us that they wanted it to be as easy as possible for businesses to get their NZBNs. We are investigating whether it is possible to allocate NZBNs to all businesses automatically.
Some businesses may want an NZBN before any automatic allocation occurs so we are looking at an application process being available for those businesses.
When will businesses be able to use their
NZBN?
Businesses other than companies should receive or
be able to apply for an NZBN from mid-2015. How soon
businesses can use the number will depend on when government
agencies and other businesses connected to your business
start using it with their customers.
Do they need to
do anything differently?
No. At the moment, the NZBN will
not replace the ACC, IRD or any other numbers that
businesses use to identify their business to various
government agencies. However, work is underway to allow the
NZBN to be the main identifier for businesses when working
with these agencies.
Will NZBNs and my information be
public?
Information available on government business
registers will remain public. For example, companies’
NZBNs are published on the Companies Office Register
alongside their other company information.
In the
future, searches will show the NZBN issued to each business,
including those not on a Companies Office register, for
example sole traders, partnerships and trusts. In addition,
GS1 New Zealand’s website will provide a public capability
to search a GS1 database that includes government-issued
NZBN as well as all GS1-issued Global Location Numbers. The
Discussion Document proposes giving businesses choices about
what other information is also published.
Who will
have access to a business’ information?
Some
information will be publicly available, like the NZBN, the
industry code and a business’ general location.
Government agencies that businesses deal with will receive
primary business data, if they are entitled to it. This
will enable businesses to update their details in one place,
which will automatically update in others.
Businesses
will be in control of who else has access to this
information and to other business information. Businesses
can choose to make information available to other government
agencies or to business partners or to make it publicly
available. They will be able to share the number with their
customers and other businesses.
What information will
be kept centrally?
One of the purposes of the NZBN is to
simplify a business’ interactions with government. A
business owner will only need to go to one place to update
primary business data, because government agencies will all
draw it from there.
It makes sense that the information
that is used over and over by different government agencies
is kept centrally. This will be information like the
business name and contact details. Information specific to a
single government agency – such as the sale and purchase
details businesses provide to Inland Revenue for GST –
will continue to be kept by the agency that uses it in their
own systems.
What if a business wants different
government agencies to have different information about its
business?
Primary business data will be common across all
agencies. Agencies businesses interact with will need to
keep specific information about them which they will be able
to use in their interactions with each business – for
example, Inland Revenue will still need to have a
business’ accountant’s address to send mail to.
How will a business’ information be kept
secure?
Business information is valuable and sometimes
private. It is important to keep it safe and accurate and
this is increasingly relevant and important in a modern
business environment. The legislation and the systems to
administer the NZBN will be designed to address risks around
the misuse of information or the accidental release of
information. On-going Privacy Impact Assessments (PIA) will
inform this work.
Ends