News Round Up

Frozen Funds Group now frozen; Investors complain over ING settlement; Drop in health and life complaints; FDR site live.

Monday, October 11th 2010, 6:39AM

by Jenha White

Drop in health and life complaints to the ISO
The life and savings sector accounted for 19% of all complaints received by the Insurance and Savings Ombudsman (ISO) in the last financial year. Both Health and Life and Savings had a decrease in the number of complaints, while Fire and General increased by 9% according to the annual report. Overall 284 complaints were received for investigation (42 more than the previous year) and 277 were resolved.

FDR website launched
Financial Disputes Resolution (FDR) the government's default dispute resolution scheme launched its website www.fdr.org.nz last Friday.

FDR has been developed and is operated by Dispute Resolution Services Ltd (DRSL), an award-winning, nationwide company. Financial advisers that choose to join up to the FDR scheme can now apply online.

Financial advisers and service providers should be registered in seven weeks time by 1 December.

Investors complain over ING settlement
ING says just over 100 investors have made "enquiries" about the payout of the $45 million settlement from ANZ over ING's Diversified Yield (DYF) and Regular Income Funds (RIF) with most asking how the payment was worked out, or why a payment was not received.

The Commerce Commission says it will review any complaints alongside ANZ/ING and if there has been an error, there is a small contingency fund to correct those.

After 30 January 2011 any amount left in the contingency fund will be divided up amongst the investors to whom a settlement payment was made.

The Commerce Commission would not reveal the amount in the contingency fund saying "the information is not in the public arena - it is confidential".

Frozen Funds Group now frozen
The Frozen Funds Group says it has ended its 18-month campaign for transparency and compensation in its final newsletter to members, as the campaign has been "quite successful".

It will however be making one last attempt to convince Government to read the reports of the Commerce Commission and - on that basis - review ANZ/ING's privilege as a default KiwiSaver provider on 15 October in a meeting with Minister of Commerce Simon Power.

The group believes investors in the ANZ KiwiSaver schemes are at risk of going the way of the investors in the ANZ/ING Frozen Funds.

Jenha is a TPL staff reporter. jenha@tarawera.co.nz

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