Stronger together: How three New Zealand financial institutions transformed card issuing through collaboration
In an evolving financial landscape, three New Zealand financial institutions – First Credit Union (FCU), Police Credit Union (PCU), and Nelson Building Society (NBS) – joined forces to launch a unified debit card issuing program powered by Change Financial’s Vertexon platform.
Along with their core banking partner Finzsoft, this strategic collaboration helped them achieve shared business goals through greater control and expanded features for their card programs.
Discover how partnering with Change Financial turned a shared challenge into a powerful opportunity for growth, innovation, and long-term member loyalty.
Unified for impact: A collaborative banking transformation
When FCU, PCU and NBS set out to modernise their card programs, they weren’t just upgrading systems, they were driving a bold, cost-effective strategic transformation.
Individually strong and committed to serving their members, these three New Zealand based financial institutions recognised the power of collaboration in navigating a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
The challenge: Legacy limitations and a shifting issuer landscape
With the banking sector increasingly driven by customer expectations for seamless digital experiences, the consortium faced growing limitations and over reliance on a large bank card issuer. The need for greater control, enhanced service delivery, and future-ready infrastructure became too critical to ignore.
The solution: A future-focused partnership
To deliver on their vision, the financial institutions joined forces to transition to a modern card issuing and processing platform – introducing a next-generation debit card solution that is secure, feature-rich, and tailored to their members’ needs.
This dual partnership enabled the group to bring card issuing in-house, reducing dependency on legacy issuers and significantly improving flexibility and speed to market. By moving away from a legacy card issuer, they unlocked new opportunities to innovate on their own terms.
The result: Empowered financial institutions providing an enhanced member experience
- Elevated member experience: Members now enjoy faster card issuance, improved digital features, and a more consistent experience across touchpoints.
- Stronger strategic positioning: The ability to innovate independently gives the financial institutions a stronger competitive edge and long-term agility.
- Cost and time efficiency: Shared resources and aligned goals enabled the financial institutions to move faster and more cost-effectively.
Looking ahead
This initiative is a powerful example of how collaboration, the right technology partners, and a clear vision for the future can drive meaningful change. For First Credit Union, Police Credit Union, and Nelson Building Society, the foundations are now in place for long-term growth, innovation, and member satisfaction.
Ready to take control of your card issuing?
Whether you’re a credit union, building society, or financial institution looking to modernise your payments offering, Change Financial is here to help. From card issuing and processing to customisable digital experiences, our Vertexon platform empowers you to deliver secure, flexible, and future-ready payment solutions, configured to your unique needs.
Contact us today to discover how we can help transform your card program and deliver a better payment experience for your customers.
Powering flexibility: How Extraordinary is reinventing employee benefits through embedded card issuing
Extraordinary is a fast-growing fintech redefining how companies deliver employee benefits. Its platform enables employers to offer flexible, personalised benefits – without the need for reimbursements, invoices or gift cards.
To deliver a seamless disbursement experience, Extraordinary partnered with Change Financial, leveraging its Mastercard issuing platform to launch customisable, controlled payment cards for employees.
The challenge: Legacy systems blocking flexibility
Traditional employee benefits and payments often rely on rigid & inflexible systems, clunky reimbursement processes and vendor-specific platforms, creating friction for both companies and their employees.
Extraordinary needed a scalable solution to:
- Deliver benefits as spendable funds,
- Enable flexible use across categories such as wellness, lifestyle, L&D and hybrid work expenses,
- Maintain employer level control and reporting.
The solution: Card issuing made simple
Extraordinary partnered with Change Financial to issue co-branded Mastercard debit cards that:
- Are pre-loaded with employer allocated funds,
- Include smart spend controls by category or merchant type,
- Are fully managed via Vertexon, Change Financial’s platform for real time visibility and control.
How It Works: The employee card for all extra-ordinary payments
- Employer onboarding: Companies join Extraordinary’s platform and set benefit allowances for their employees
- Card issuance: Employees receive a physical or virtual Mastercard debit card, co-branded for their company or Extraordinary
- Fund allocation: Cards are loaded monthly, quarterly or annually, based on the benefit program
- Spend controls: Payments are restricted to eligible categories to ensure policy compliance
- Real time reporting: Employers track usage and trends to optimise benefit strategies via the Extraordinary portal.
Results & Benefits:
Powered by Change Financial’s Vertexon platform, Extraordinary has enabled its clients to modernise how they deliver benefits – boosting employee engagement, increasing employee retention and simplifying operations.
- Global flexibility – supports distributed teams with multi-currency capabilities
- Branded experience – co-branded cards enhance the employee experience and brand equity
- Data driven insights – real-time reporting enables smarter program decisions
- Faster time to launch – deploys rapidly without the need for custom infrastructure.
Why Change Financial?
Extraordinary partnered with Change Financial for its ability to deliver flexible, scalable and compliant card issuing – critical for Extraordinary’s mission to revolutionise employee benefits.
Here’s what made Change the ideal partner:
- End-to-end platform – card issuing, fund distribution, spend control, and compliance – fully managed
- Speed & flexibility – agile APIs and a responsive support team enables fast launches and seamless scaling
- Global infrastructure – multi-currency, globally accepted cards designed for distributed teams
- Built in security – PCI-DSS compliant platform, real-time fraud controls and configurable card level restrictions
- True Partnership – hands on support from day one – including custom configuration and dedicated technical support.
Whether you’re launching a new fintech product, modernising employee experiences, or embedding financial services into your platform, Change Financial empowers you to do it with confidence, speed, and scale.
Partner with Change Financial
Looking to launch a card program? Change Financial is a trusted fintech and payments partner that helps businesses launch and scale Mastercard programs – fast.
Contact us: sales@changefinancial.com
Learn more: www.changefinancial.com
HealthNow – Revolutionising Employee Health Benefits
In the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare, innovation often takes center stage in addressing the complex challenges that individuals face in accessing quality health services. HealthNow, a company that embarked on its journey just three years ago, is a shining example of such innovation. Their mission? To bring healthcare back into the hands of the people.
A vision anchored in accessibility
HealthNow was born from the realisation that the prohibitive cost of healthcare stands as the primary barrier to individuals seeking and utilising the healthcare they need. With this critical issue in mind, HealthNow set forth on a mission to make healthcare more accessible and affordable for everyone by unlocking the ability of organisations to seamlessly contribute to health and wellness of their employees in real time.
The employer’s stake in employee health
One of the key insights that sets HealthNow apart is their belief that employers are the primary beneficiaries of their employees’ health. After all, an employee’s well-being is intricately linked to an employer’s productivity and success. When an employee falls ill, it doesn’t just cost a day’s pay; it disrupts project timelines, delays deliverables, and generates missed deadlines. Employers, therefore, have a vested interest in ensuring their employees remain healthy and have access to healthcare when they need it. Wide ranging research also underpins the positive impact on recruitment, retention and productivity as a new generation of employees put a significant weighting on the benefits offering as part of the total remuneration consideration.
Challenging the status quo
Traditional company-provided health benefits often come with limitations, restricting employees to specific healthcare providers or imposing lengthy and cumbersome reimbursement processes. This is where HealthNow steps in with their game-changing solution.
In partnership with Change Financial, HealthNow is set to formally launch in December, with 4,500 cards going live. This innovative program offers an easily accessible payment card, loaded by employers with a pre-allocated amount of funds that can be added to, or updated in real time. Employers can selectively authorise approved healthcare categories, empowering employees to access the services they need, visit trusted providers, and pay as easily as they would for groceries via the normal payment network.
A vision of preventative healthcare
HealthNow doesn’t just offer a payment solution; it champions a fundamental shift in how employers view and support employee health. Their focus on preventative healthcare, rather than reactive solutions, ensures employees receive benefits tailored to their diverse needs.
HealthNow’s program is adaptable, making it an ideal solution for companies with large and diverse teams. The program stands out because it benefits a 20-year-old in the same way it does a 60-year-old, putting the power in the hands of employees to choose where they spend their allocated healthcare funds. As the team at HealthNow say “nobody knows your employees like they do”.
The success of the HealthNow program lies in its simplicity and the autonomy it grants to employees. Utilisation of the program measures its effectiveness, highlighting a growing preference among employees for known and trusted healthcare providers. With low utilisation of current employer Employee Assistance Programs (EAP), HealthNow’s approach ensures employees can choose healthcare solutions that align with their preferences and needs.
A global outlook
The imminent launch in New Zealand will see HealthNow become Change’s first Prepaid card program client in New Zealand. With an initial distribution of over 4,500 cards, this is just the beginning with the future of HealthNow filled with possibilities and transformative potential.
Looking ahead, HealthNow is poised for international expansion and they’re about to commence a capital raise to support these expansion plans. HealthNow is driven by a powerful team, with their executives, board members, Chairman and company advisors, all being a collective force of successful entrepreneurs, business leaders and CEOs, who are all passionately driving the HealthNow proposition.
By championing preventative healthcare and empowering employees, they’re revolutionising the employee benefits landscape. For investors seeking an opportunity to be part of this remarkable journey, HealthNow is a company to watch.