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Museum visits for schools

Our museum is currently open for school visits by appointment. It provides a glimpse into New Zealand's economic and banking history. 

About the museum

The museum celebrates and tells the story of our foundation and role as Aotearoa New Zealand's central bank.

It is the only specialist economic and central banking museum in New Zealand, designed to educate and inform, highlighting and celebrating New Zealand’s wider economic and banking history.

It includes an extensive range of exhibits showing the history of the banking system as well as a selection of rare notes and coins from our numismatic collection.

The museum is located on the ground floor of the Reserve Bank building at 2 The Terrace, Wellington.

RBNZ Exterior
Exterior of the Reserve Bank museum in Wellington.

About school visits

Students visiting the museum will be given a 45 to 60 minute presentation by a member of our staff and hear about a range of topics including:

  • Kaitiakitanga: The Reserve Bank of New Zealand – Te Pūtea Matua - our role in society, overview of what we do and how we do it
  • Monetary policy and economics in practice.

Older students may get more out of the content, but younger students are also welcome.

Our museum is a shared space also used for media conferences and other ad hoc events. We will do our best to avoid a conflict of bookings, but if we need the museum space for an urgent media conference, we will have to rebook your visit. We will let you know as soon as possible if this happens. For this reason, when requesting a visit, please suggest an alternative date so we can rebook your visit immediately.

Museum drawer
Open the drawers in the museum to see ancient and commemorative coins.

How schools can register interest

Express your interest by contacting us with the following information:

  • preferred starting time
  • school year (age) of the students
  • number of students and teachers visiting
  • two contact names with the email addresses and mobile numbers for the school representatives organising the visit
  • any particular questions the students wish to have answered during their visit. 

For more information and enquiries about the museum, email [email protected].

Decimal currency museum display
Check out the campaign that was used to introduce New Zealanders to decimal currency in 1967.