A Maori bank could offer decent rates and show the Australian-owned banks the way, the Maori Party says.
MP Rahui Katene was on the finance and expenditure committee that released a report criticising banks for continued high interest rates.
Australian-owned trading banks were using New Zealanders as a "cash cow to line the pockets of their Australian shareholders", she said.
"It also suggests to me that it might be time for iwi organisations to look at establishing a bank of our own."
The BNZ, ANZ, National, ASB and Westpac banks are all Australian-owned.
Maori have a large collective asset base and could set up their own bank, Ms Katene said.
The idea of a community development bank that would provide low interest loans to families and small business operators has always been Maori Party policy.
"The idea is to re-circulate profits and benefits into the communities which generate them, not have them siphoned off overseas," she said.
"Maori have assets, we have very talented and skilled people in the finance sector and coming through our universities, but most of all as tangata whenua we have a permanent stake in the well-being of this country."
She was sure many other New Zealanders would welcome it.
