Business Account General Terms

Your agreement with New Zealand Post

We want to make it as easy as possible for you to do business with us, so here are the General Terms that will apply. Please read them carefully, because the current version of these General Terms applies whenever you use our services. In these General Terms, ‘we’ means New Zealand Post Limited.

Other terms (Service Terms) apply for particular services or a set of services, and we’ll provide you with the Service Terms for the services you’ve asked to us to provide – the Service Terms apply to those services only and may vary these General Terms as they apply to that particular service or set of services.

If you wish to use our Postal Services, the Services Terms are our Public Contract and Postal Users’ Guide (available on our website www.nzpost.co.nz), unless we provide you with separate Service Terms for Postal Services. Our web and mobile terms of use also apply when you use services or interact with us through our website(s) or mobile phone applications. These terms are available on the relevant website. Again, please read the Public Contract and Postal Users’ Guide or specific Service Terms and any applicable web or mobile terms of use carefully.

By starting to use our services, you are deemed to have accepted the General Terms, and the relevant Service Terms. No amendments proposed by you apply, unless different terms are specifically agreed with you in writing by one of our General Managers.

Information we collect from you

Information we have collected (and will collect while providing services to you) will be held and used to provide the services you’ve asked for from us, including being provided to service providers and relevant governmental agencies for that purpose, and for credit management and control purposes. We may also collect information from, and disclose information to, other people for these purposes.

If you have consented to the use in each case, we may also use the information collected to send you information about our business or services or those offered by other people which we think might be of interest to you, and may provide your information to other people for their marketing purposes.

See also clauses 25 to 28 of these General Terms.

General Terms

About us

  1. These General Terms and the Service Terms together are our agreement with you.
  2. We may use subcontractors to perform some or all services for you, but we will always remain liable to you for complying with these General Terms and the Service Terms.

Credit & payment

  1. Once we have given you your account number, you can start using our services.
  2. We will usually invoice you for services monthly. You must pay by direct debit or on invoice in sufficient time for our receipt in cleared funds by the 20th day of the month following the date of the invoice. You may not set-off any amounts we owe you against the amounts you owe us. If you stop using our services or we terminate our agreement with you, we will invoice you for any services provided and not previously invoiced. You must pay immediately that invoice and any other outstanding invoices.
  3. If you think there’s a mistake in your invoice, please let us know within 14 days of receiving the invoice. You must still pay undisputed amounts when due. We will consider the query, and when we have corrected or confirmed the amount due, you must pay any additional amount owing within 14 days. We will pay any amount we owe you within 1 month or credit your next invoice.
  4. If you don’t pay an undisputed amount when due, we may charge interest on that amount at the overnight overdraft daily interest rate charged by our principal bankers, calculated daily and compounding monthly, and may stop providing the services to you until we agree alternative payment arrangements with you.
  5. If we have any concerns about your credit rating at any time, we may contact you for more information or may stop providing the services to you until we agree alternative payment arrangements.
  6. We may transfer any overdue amounts you owe us to a third party for collection after notice to you. If we do this, you may also be required to pay any additional collection costs incurred.

Our prices

  1. The prices stated in any proposal provided to you are based on the information you have provided to us. We may need to change your service levels and the prices charged, if that information is incorrect, or if it changes later. If you don’t want to pay the new prices, you can give us notice and stop using our services from the date the new prices apply.
  2. All prices are in New Zealand dollars (unless the invoice states otherwise), and exclude GST, which must be paid as well if GST applies.
  3. We may review prices from time to time to ensure we can maintain our high standards for our customers. We’ll give you at least 30 days’ notice of any pending price change. If you don’t want to pay the new prices, you can give us notice and stop using our services from the date the new prices apply.
  4. Other pricing or review terms apply for some services. See Service Terms for details.

Our liability to you

  1. We will:
    1. use reasonable skill and care to provide our services,
    2. comply with the specifications for the relevant service, and
    3. promptly respond to any reasonable questions you may have about our services.
  2. We give no other guarantees, representations, or warranties unless they are set out in the Service Terms, or we are required to by law.
  3. If we don’t comply with our agreement with you, we will pay you for any direct losses you suffer, up to the monetary limit set out in the relevant Service Terms, provided that you claim within the time limit set out in the Service Terms. We won’t be liable to pay you for losses, to the extent that our failure to comply with the agreement is a result of your own failure to comply with the agreement.
  4. At the most, we will only be liable to you under or in relation to our agreement with you (including any Service Terms) for up to $150,000 in any 12-month period. We will not pay any loss of income, profits or savings nor consequential or other indirect losses, unless we are required to by law. Some services have additional exclusions of liability which are set out in the relevant Service Terms.
  5. If you are in trade, you agree that the services provided under this agreement are supplied and acquired in trade and that the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 does not apply.
  6. We are not required to comply with our agreement with you to the extent it is not reasonably practical for us to do so because of an event outside our control.

Your liability to us

  1. You agree to:
    1. pay us the full agreed price for all our services provided to you,
    2. only use our services for lawful purposes,
    3. not interfere in the use of our services by other customers,
    4. give us accurate and complete information for the services, and
    5. comply with the specifications for the relevant service.
  2. If you don’t comply with our agreement with you, you must pay us for any losses we suffer, or any damage you cause to anyone else’s property as a result of your failure to comply. If your breach is material, we may give you 10 days’ notice and then, if you haven’t remedied the breach to our reasonable satisfaction, stop providing those services to you.

You can change or stop services

  1. If you want to start, change or stop using any services at any time, just contact us. Some services may require a set-up period before starting, have a minimum period, or need a notice period before ending, and these will be specified in the Service Terms.
  2. If you sell or transfer your business, we will usually want to set up a new agreement with the new owner. Please contact us.

We can change services or our terms or stop services

  1. We may withdraw or change our services available to you or change our agreement with you, from time to time. One of our General Managers will give you at least 30 days’ notice of any pending withdrawal or change of services or material change of terms. We will publish any changes on our website.
  2. Continuing to use our services will mean that you agree to those changes. If you don’t accept a change, you can stop using our services from the date the change applies.

Privacy & confidentiality

  1. If we collect personal information from you, we’ll tell you what we are going to use it for. You can ask to look at, and ask for corrections to, that information at any time by emailing your NZ Post contact or [email protected]. For further details, see our privacy policy (set out at www.nzpost.co.nz).
  2. You warrant that the personal information about you or your customers that you give us so we can perform the services for you has been collected by you and is given to us using processes that comply with the Privacy Act 2020 and may be used by us as contemplated to provide the Services (including the provision of customer email addresses or mobile numbers for the purposes of New Zealand Post providing notification of parcel tracking events and collecting any relevant feedback in relation to the delivery or tracking service) without breaching the Privacy Act 2020.
  3. The information in this agreement, and the information exchanged during the course of this agreement, is confidential between the parties. Neither you nor we may use it or disclose it to anyone else, except as necessary to receive the benefit of or to perform the services or other related purposes we have told you about (e.g. credit checking), unless the other party agrees to the disclosure, or the disclosure is required by law, State Owned Enterprises disclosure requirements, or applicable stock exchange rules. However, we may use and share with other people aggregated, anonymous information regarding service usage and trends for data analytics purposes. This information will not be able to be linked back to you.
  4. Customer email addresses or mobile phone numbers provided to New Zealand Post in accordance with clause 26 will only be used by New Zealand Post for the purpose of notifying the customer of tracking events and obtaining feedback on the delivery and tracking services or in accordance with clause 27. Email addresses and mobile numbers provided under clause 26 will not be added by New Zealand Post to any other mailing list.

Service terms & specifications

  1. Each individual service may also have specifications and limitations that apply to the particular service and those specifications and limitations will be set out in the relevant Service Terms. Those Service Terms may add to or vary these General Terms – if they are not consistent with the General Terms, the Service Terms have precedence for the services they relate to.
  2. We will provide you with a copy of the current Service Terms, and your use of that service means that you agree to those Service Terms. Each individual service may also have specifications and limitations that apply to the particular service. See Service Terms for details.

How you can contact us

  1. For further information at any time, or if you think we have not complied with our terms for services, please contact your NZ Post contact, our Customer Care Centre on 0800 501 501, or visit our website at www.nzpost.co.nz.
  2. Any notice from you to us must be in writing (which can be by email), sent by you or your authorised representative, to:

    New Zealand Post Limited
    Private Bag 39990
    Wellington 5045
    Attention: GM Sales & Service
    Or GM Customer Communication Management

    OR email [email protected]

How we will contact you

  1. You agree that all notices about the services and our terms, and all other correspondence, may be sent either in your monthly invoice to the address you have given us, or by separate notice to the contact email address you have provided to us. Changes of services and terms will also be posted on our website – so keep an eye out there as well.
  2. If you want to change your contact address, please sent us a notice giving the new address or asking us to use a different contact method.

Other things you need to know

  1. Your agreement with us is governed by New Zealand law. You agree to submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the New Zealand courts.
  2. If we have a right under this agreement and don’t exercise it, that does not imply we won’t exercise it in future.
  3. If this agreement is terminated for any reason, some terms will remain enforceable between us – these are clauses 4 to 6, 8, 25 to 28, 31 to 35 and 38, as well as this clause 37.
  4. If a court holds any of the terms in our agreement with you to be unenforceable, that term is deemed to be severed from this agreement and the rest of the terms will remain in full force and effect.
  5. If any day on or by which anything is due to be done is not a business day, that thing will be deemed to be due on the next business day.
  6. If we use ’including’ or ‘in particular’, these are examples only and do not limit interpretation.

Download a PDF of these General Terms (PDF - 143KB)

Last updated: 21 April 2022