Interesting article by Dean Anderson on Kiwi Saver. Political parties playing around with KS, is a silly and stupid approach. A full review and cross Parliament accord, would be helpful, New Zealanders want certainty on Retirement Income policies and are poorly served by our politicians, whose knowledge and policy actions are generally unsatisfactory.
The Retirement Commissioner (agency) must be the lead authority on this issue, and a Retirement Income Summit is long overdue for both discussion and a repository for evidence based Retirement Income knowledge
KiwiSaver breaks $100bn barrier
New Reserve Bank of NZ (RBNZ) figures show KiwiSaver topped the $100 billion mark in the June quarter, hitting the milestone 16 years after the regime launched in mid 2007.
Total KiwiSaver funds under management (FUM) landed just under $100.8 billion as at June 30 or an increase of 3.7 per cent for the quarter on the back of net flows and positive markets.
Offshore assets represented about 56 per cent of KiwiSaver FUM in the June 2023 RBNZ statistics compared to about 51 per cent at the same date two years prior.
During the same two-year period to the end of June, the overall KiwiSaver asset split between growth and income has shifted slightly, too, with cash and bonds (global and NZ combined) equating to 37 per cent of the total in the latest figures versus 33 per cent in 2021.
For the 12 months to June 30, the KiwiSaver market grew by 15.4 per cent, the RBNZ report says, in a year when traditional superannuation funds went backwards by 4.6 per cent.
Super funds held $30.9 billion at the end of June as the old-school retirement savings sector continues to flat-line while the government-mandated KiwiSaver surges ahead: in June 2016 the super and KiwiSaver sectors managed about $25 billion and $30 billion, respectively.
The RBNZ data shows total gross NZ funds under management as at June 30 of almost $268 billion also peaked above the previous all-time high of more than $264 billion recorded at the end of 2021.
Following the subsequent pan-asset market rout, the NZ managed funds sector bottomed out at $234 billion by June 30 last year.
‘Consolidated’ FUM,