Constructed in 1928, Wairoa’s Bank of Australasia (Former) is a two storey reinforced concrete and brick building. Stripped Classical was the preeminent architectural style used in New Zealand for banks and public buildings at the time and was typical of the work of important architectural practice Atkins and Mitchell, who designed this and many other bank buildings. The building contributes aesthetic values to its streetscape and has historic and social significance because it was the site of Wairoa’s branches of several important national banking and insurance institutions. The Bank of Australasia was established in 1835 and began opening branches around New Zealand from the 1860s onwards. They opened their first Wairoa branch in 1911. Prior to the Bank of Australasia acquiring the Marine Parade site in 1927, it had been the location of Wairoa’s first bank and then the Bank of New Zealand from the 1870s. Atkins and Mitchell was a prominent architectural practice which, in one form or another, was active between 1883 and the 1990s and predominantly based in Wellington. Wairoa’s Bank of Australasia is among many others Cyril Hawthorn Mitchell (1891-1949) designed in his role as that institution’s architect. The call for construction tenders for the new building, anticipated as ‘a decided asset to the town’, was advertised in early 1928. GH Mason of Wellington was awarded the contract and the foundations were complete late in May 1928. The bank was reported as nearing completion in mid-November 1928 and banking operations commenced by early January 1929. The building, touted as ‘[a]nother mark…on the map of progressive Wairoa’, was typical of Atkins and Mitchell’s work of the time, such as banks in Invercargill, Wellington and Whanganui. The Wairoa bank’s Stripped Classical elements include Tuscan order columns, flanking the main entrance, in front of a wave/Vitruvian scroll frieze. The entablature has alternating triglyphs and roundels wrapping around the corners, as well as dentils beneath the cornice and parapet. Behind the front section, the building has a tiled hipped roof, deep eaves and textured concrete walls, showing Arts and Crafts style influence which was also popular at the time. The building’s lower level featured the business areas and the upper level was a three-bedroom residence for the bank manager and family. The building’s single storey rear section appears to be original. The building seems to have been unscathed by the destructive 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake. Unlike Wairoa’s other banks and the majority of its commercial buildings, the Bank of Australasia also had no structural damage resulting from a subsequent September 1932 earthquake, which was reported to have been worse in Wairoa than the 1931 event. In 1944 the property was acquired by the Bank of New South Wales, before becoming privately owned in 1959. State Insurance owned and operated from the property between 1973 and 1985. At the time the building was added to the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero (1986) the building was primarily used as a private residence. In 2016 it featured two flats as well as office space.