[Weekly Wrap] Fund and games

This week had some good and not so good news for the funds industry. The good news was that funds flow has been strong and, in fact, the latest quarter was the best the industry has seen in 18 years - even though markets have been, if not poor, at best challenging. Two factors behind this are the new PIE tax rules and KiwiSaver.

Friday, October 31st 2008, 4:24PM

With PIEs www.depositrates.co.nz is developing a new table comparing the offerings. You can compare funds here. The page will be developed some more in the next few days too.

Meanwhile, a survey has shown that term deposits are the place to be and rental property is getting a reality check.

On the not-so-good side of the industry we have seen AXA freeze redemptions on its mortgage funds. This freeze is linked to the government's new deposit guarantee scheme. Initially I thought this week was going to see a rash of fund freezes in New Zealand, just like we have witnessed in Australia. Thankfully that has not eventuated.

You can get more thoughts on what is happening in the latest Blog: Managed fund mayhem muted. Also if you want to keep up with which institutions have been accepted into the guarantee scheme read this story. We will update it each day for you.

One of the themes this year in the insurance advisory space has been changes to the groups distributing products. Today's story on Good Returns discusses impending changes at Asteron-owned Stone & Associates.

Also this week in Insurance News we have the latest piece from Strategy Financial's Graeme Lindsay discussing Disability Waiver of Premium policies and early next week we start a new monthly column in Insurance News.

The other really interesting story this week was about Kiwibank's plans to enter the managed fund space and appoint its own advisers. In this story we report that the bank is establishing a wealth division and is on the look-out for 'experienced' financial advisers to sell its range of insurance and investment products.

There have been significant changes to home loan rates since the Reserve Bank cut the official cash rate 100 basis points last week. The term which has fallen the most is floating or variable rates. Most lenders have passed on the full OCR cut to customers.

In the fixed rate area there have also been many changes, of varying magnitude. Essentially rates have dropped here too. What is worth noting is that lenders are adopting some different strategies to their pricing, rather than all playing follow the leader. We explain more on what is happening in the Weekly Home Loan report and you can compare the various offerings by viewing our comprehensive table.

The other big news in the past week has been that GE is to stop funding loans through third parties such as non-bank lenders. This is going to have some impact on the market, particularly in the lo-doc, no-doc lending space. We report on this development here.

The only appointment to report this week is the addition of a non-executive, independent director to Gould Wealth Management's investment committee. As readers will know Gould bought much of the business which was formerly Vestar.

If you have any new appointments you would like to list on www.goodreturns.co.nz please send an email to editor@goodreturns.co.nz.

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