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John Horner: Financial Markets Authority director on KiwiSaver funds breaking $100 billion mark · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks. There'd be
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  Speaker 2: Now Can We Saver investments have hit a new milestone,
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  Speaker 2: topping over one hundred billion dollars for the first time
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  Speaker 2: in New Zealand. The amount of money in managed funds
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  Speaker 2: has increased by nineteen percent, and what that means is
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  Speaker 2: that sixty two percent of us are now invested in
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  Speaker 2: a Key we Save fund. John Horner is the director
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  Speaker 2: of the Financial Markets Authority. Hey, John, hi, have is
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  Speaker 2: there a particular reason why our Key we Save investors
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  Speaker 2: investments have jumped up that much in.
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  Speaker 3: Just a year. Look, it's probably a bounce back from
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  Speaker 3: the prior year where returns on investment we're negative. So
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  Speaker 3: we always look at these things long term. Great to
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  Speaker 3: see your bounce back, but that's the long term accounts.
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  Speaker 2: What do you make of the number of withdrawals or
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  Speaker 2: the value of the withdrawals?
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  Speaker 3: Possibly a sign of the times that these cost of
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  Speaker 3: living challenges, that's difficult economic conditions, and so it's probably
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  Speaker 3: Key We Saber working as it was designed to allow
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  Speaker 3: those withdrawls to happen.
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  Speaker 2: How much Okay, so how much of the money that's
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  Speaker 2: being withdrawn is being taken out to basically just pay
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  Speaker 2: the bills.
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  Speaker 3: We won't know the reasons in for the withdrawals. I
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  Speaker 3: mean hardship applications. It's quite a high threshold. It's not
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  Speaker 3: a matter if I can't pay my bills just now,
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  Speaker 3: but it's quite a significant threshold to overcome. That's dealt
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  Speaker 3: with by the supervisors SABER providers. They assess the hardship
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  Speaker 3: applications and make those decisions.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, just off the top of my head, it was
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  Speaker 2: something like five billion that's been taken out in the
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  Speaker 2: last year.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, five billion was drawn
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  Speaker 3: by members and so that'll also be over sixty fives
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  Speaker 3: as well. So they're the ones who are actually using
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  Speaker 3: their kiisaver in their retirement.
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  Speaker 2: Right, and the key we say, sorry, the over sixty
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  Speaker 2: fives actually make up the vast majority of that about
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  Speaker 2: three billion. But how do we know they don't need
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  Speaker 2: it for hardship.
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  Speaker 3: Well, they can use it for whatever reason they like, right,
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  Speaker 3: So you're right. I mean, if you're in your retirement,
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  Speaker 3: key wesaver is all about your financial well being and
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  Speaker 3: your retirement years. Some of those folks will still be working,
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  Speaker 3: maybe part time, maybe full time, but TV tapers available
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  Speaker 3: for them to use as they wish.
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  Speaker 2: And so I suppose we can't break it out and
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  Speaker 2: look at how many of them are taking it up
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  Speaker 2: because they're leaving the country altogether or anything like that.
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  Speaker 3: Can we look the numbers are as reported? There's an
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  Speaker 3: also a lot of numbers in there, so I can't
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  Speaker 3: speak to all of them. But yeah, the withdrawals that
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  Speaker 3: the headline figures for the withdrawals is the number week
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  Speaker 3: we focus on.
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  Speaker 2: What do you make of only sixty two percent of
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  Speaker 2: us being invested in Key We Save Fund? I suppose
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  Speaker 2: glass half full. That's not a bad number, but glass
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  Speaker 2: half empty. There's still a fair chunk of us who
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  Speaker 2: aren't invested.
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  Speaker 3: That's right. We'd always like it to be more. And
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  Speaker 3: but obviously like the members who are part of k
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  Speaker 3: we saber to be contributing. But again, relative to the
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  Speaker 3: times we're going through at the moment, we think the
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  Speaker 3: contributions have held pretty steady. Would always like those who
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  Speaker 3: have ceased to make contributions to come back and start
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  Speaker 3: those again just as soon as they can.
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  Speaker 2: John most people are in growth funds now, Does that
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  Speaker 2: reflect the age of the investors that they are of
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  Speaker 2: a younger profile or is there something else going on here?
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  Speaker 3: Maybe not so much the age, more the investment horizon
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  Speaker 3: that they're looking at as their long term investment. They've
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  Speaker 3: got a long term horizon sort of ten years and plus.
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  Speaker 3: Then growth funders most likely to be the right fund
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  Speaker 3: for them.
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  Speaker 2: John, it's good to talk to you. Thank you very much,
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  Speaker 2: really appreciate it. John Horner, Director of the Financial Markets Authority.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Can you please look into the realized that agents losing
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: their licenses for not completing the Maori cultural courses. Yes,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: I'm going to raise that with you. You're going to
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: hear this. You're going to have to hear this. The
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: old Fletcher Building thing seems to be an old albatross
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: hanging around some people who are associated with its next
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  Speaker 2: at the moment A Bruce Hassel. Maybe Buff may be
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  Speaker 2: regretting that he ever had anything to do with it.
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  Speaker 2: He was the chair of Fletcher Buildings now just withdrawn
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  Speaker 2: his nomination for election to the Victor Board completely unrelated,
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  Speaker 2: but has decided to withdraw his nomination for election because
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  Speaker 2: feedback from shareholders. Obviously, when it was not very positive
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  Speaker 2: about his previous role as the chair of Fletcher Building.
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  Speaker 2: The Victor's current chair, Doug mckaye's, expressed disappointment on behalf
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  Speaker 2: of the board said Hassel had made significant contributions since
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  Speaker 2: he joined last October and blah blah blah. He had
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  Speaker 2: the unanimousupport of his board colleagues, but unfortunately the shareholders
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  Speaker 2: don't love it, and so he's out. Twelve past six.
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