Reference: 20260011
2 March 2026
Sam Brown
[FYI request #33449 email]
Dear Sam
Thank you for your request made under the Official Information Act, received on 6
January 2026. The scope of your original request was clarified on the 30 January 2026
to be:
Please provide the following information regarding the Business Finance
Guarantee Scheme, North Island Weather Events Loan Guarantee Scheme, and
Community Housing Provider Loan Guarantee Scheme:
1. Programme Design and Frameworks:
- Eligibility criteria and assessment frameworks used to determine which
borrowers/sectors qualified
- Risk assessment methodologies for determining guarantee coverage
percentages
- Pricing structures (guarantee fees charged to borrowers or lenders)
- How Crown fiscal exposure was calculated and managed
- Criteria used to determine when loan guarantees are appropriate government
intervention versus direct grants or other mechanisms
2. 1. Actual fiscal cost to Crown (the substantive cost):
- Total value of guarantee payments actually made by Crown when borrowers
defaulted
- This expressed as percentage of total loans guaranteed
- For example: if $100M was guaranteed and Crown paid out $3M in defaults =
3% fiscal cost
2.2 Programme administration costs:
- Operational and administrative costs of running each scheme
1 The Terrace
PO Box 3724
Wellington 6140
New Zealand
tel. +64-4-472-2733
https://treasury.govt.nz
- This helps assess total Crown cost of the intervention
3. Policy Development:
Any ministerial briefings, cabinet papers, or policy advice regarding:
- Rationale for selecting loan guarantees versus alternative interventions (direct
grants, subsidies, etc.)
- Assessment of market failures these schemes were designed to address
- Why guarantees were considered appropriate for these sectors/circumstances
- Whether similar mechanisms were considered or proposed for other sectors
experiencing capital access barriers
4. Cross-Sector Applicability:
- Any analysis of whether loan guarantee models developed for these schemes
could be applied to other sectors facing systematic capital access barriers
- Any advice regarding what types of market failures or capital access problems
are suitable for loan guarantee intervention
- Framework or criteria for assessing when new loan guarantee schemes would
be appropriate policy response to market failures
5. International Comparisons:
- Any analysis of international loan guarantee programmes that informed New
Zealand scheme design
- Particularly any analysis of loan guarantees used for infrastructure financing in
comparable jurisdictions
Partial response:
Part One: Programme Design and Frameworks.
With regards to the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme (BFGS) I refer you to the
BFGS webpage within The Treasury website:
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/information-and-services/new-zealand-economy/covid-19-
economic-response/measures/bfg
Additionally all advice regarding BFGS has been proactively released and are available
here:
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/information-release/business-finance-
guarantee-scheme and
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/information-
release/proactive-release-business-finance-guarantee-scheme-interim-evaluation
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Accordingly, in regard to your request for information about the BFGS I have refused
your request under section 18(d) of the Official Information Act - the information
requested is or wil soon be publicly available.
With regards to the North Island Weather Events (NIWE) Loan Guarantee Scheme
(LGS) we currently refer you to the webpage within The Treasury website:
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/information-and-services/other-services/north-island-
weather-events-loan-guarantee-scheme
With regards to the Community Housing Provider (CHP) LGS we currently refer you to
the webpage within The Treasury website:
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/information-and-services/other-services/community-
housing-provider-loan-guarantee-scheme
Part Two: Actual fiscal cost to Crown (the substantive cost).
a. Total value of guarantee payments actual y made by Crown when borrowers
defaulted.
The BFGS, NIWE LGS, and the CHP LGS (the Schemes) are all stil operating. The
total value of guarantee payments actual y made by the Crown when Borrowers
defaulted wil not be known until after each Scheme has ceased to be operational.
However, we can provide you with the total value of guarantee payments made by the
Crown under each Scheme when Borrowers defaulted as at 31 December 2025:
• BFGS - $11,746,685.21
• NIWE LGS - $305,976.00
• CHP LGS - $nil
Expressed as a percentage of total Supported Loans guaranteed:
• BFGS – 0.41%
• NIWE LGS – 0.02%
• CHP LGS – 0.00%
Part Three: Policy Development.
The documents regarding the BFGS have been proactively released and are available
here:
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/information-release/business-finance-
guarantee-scheme and
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/information-
release/proactive-release-business-finance-guarantee-scheme-interim-evaluation
Accordingly, in regard to your request for information about the BFGS I have refused
your request under section 18(d) of the Official Information Act - the information
requested is or wil soon be publicly available.
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Part Five: International Comparisons.
The documents regarding the BFGS have been proactively released and are available
here:
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/information-release/business-finance-
guarantee-scheme and
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/information-
release/proactive-release-business-finance-guarantee-scheme-interim-evaluation
Accordingly, in regard to your request for information about the BFGS I have refused
your request under section 18(d) of the Official Information Act - the information
requested is or wil soon be publicly available.
There are no international comparisons relating to either the NIWE LGS and the CHP
LGS. Accordingly, this part of your request is refused under section 18(e) of the Official
Information Act – the document alleged to contain the information requested does not
exist or cannot be found.
Remaining parts to be extended:
I have decided under section 15A of the Official Information Act to extend the time limit
for deciding on the outstanding parts of part 1, 2.b, 3 and 4 of your request by an
additional 40 working days. The new due date for responding to your request is 30 April
2026.
The extension is required because your request necessitates a search through a large
quantity of information, and consultations are needed before a decision can be made
on your request.
This extension will also apply to the time limit for transferring your request, should this
become relevant.
Notwithstanding this extension, I undertake to decide on your request as soon as
reasonably practicable.
You have the right to ask the Ombudsman to investigate and review this decision.
Yours sincerely
Peter Rowe
Head of Export Credit
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