New Zealand First might want the government to buy back BNZ and meld it with Kiwibank to create a banking competitor to take on the Australian big banks - but there's limited evidence that it would work.
NZ First leader Winston Peters said at the weekend that the decision to sell the bank in the 1990s was a disgrace.
The bank encountered problems in the 1980s when it expanded into corporate lending after market deregulation.
The Crown coughed up not once ($634 million) but twice ($720m, with the help of another investor) to save it, before it was eventually sold to National Australia Bank, which still owns it.
Speaking at a campaign event at the Trusts Arena in West Auckland, Peters said the new entity - to be known as "National Bank of New Zealand" - would be commercially run and designed to compete more aggressively with the major Australian-owned banks operating in New Zealand.
