Another KiwiSaver scheme joins the market

Consilium is launching an own brand KiwiSaver to sit alongside its premium KiwiWrap scheme.

Thursday, April 17th 2025, 7:33AM 4 Comments

The new Evidential KiwiSaver scheme gives advisers a series of model portfolios to use with clients while advisers using KiwiWrap can construct custom portfolios for clients from an extensive menu of funds and securities.

Consilium managing director Scott Alman says unlike many traditional KiwiSaver providers Evidential is built on "academic research and financial science, rather than speculation or marketing-driven fund selection."

Evidential has three options; Balanced, Growth and High Growth.

Investors can access Evidential through approved advisers reinforcing its support of advisers and beliefs that expert guidance in long term investing leads to success.

"A financial adviser helps investors make informed decisions on fund selection, contribution levels and market fluctuations," Alman says.

The scheme uses the two Evidential Funds which Consilium launched in 2022 and 2024. They now have more than $1 billion in funds under management.

"Many KiwiSaver schemes rely on past performance and low fees, while Evidential KiwiSaver scheme prioritises scientific research, academic insights, and long term financial principles," Alman says. "The aim is to have higher expected returns than both passive and active alternatives."

He says that taking this approach and marrying up with advisers gives investors the best chance at achieving financial security in retirement.

While it may seem odd to be launching yet another KiwiSaver scheme, Alman says this is something Consilium had planned for some time and it was very much adviser-driven.

"Advisers like KiwiWrap but they told us there's a gap for some investors - especially those with less than $50,000 in KiwiSaver."

KiwiWrap also requires a minimum of $50,000 and, because of its structure, has a flat 28% tax rate.

Evidential KiwiSaver has no minimum and operates as a PIE for tax efficiency.

Consilium is holding a launch event for advisers on May 22 in Auckland.

Tags: Consilium Evidential KiwiWrap Scott Alman

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Comments from our readers

On 18 April 2025 at 11:20 am Davidvs said:

If these quotes are correctly ascribed to Scott, there are some pretty big claims about this scheme (positive) as well as the rest of the KiwiSaver providers (negative). Be good to see the evidence behind each of these claims.

On 22 April 2025 at 9:57 am Pragmatic said:

Evidence-based investing, while often touted as a rational and data-driven approach, can be overly rigid and dismissive of the dynamic nature of markets. It relies heavily on historical data, assuming that past patterns and statistical relationships will continue into the future.

This backward-looking focus may ignore the impact of innovation, changing investor behavior, or the current environment that the world has entered that defy statistical norms.

By clinging to models and metrics that worked in the past, investors will miss opportunities that don’t neatly fit into established frameworks.

Moreover, evidence-based investing can foster a false sense of certainty.

Enthusiastic advisors may place too much trust in historic strategies and academic theories, underestimating the role of human judgment and market psychology - with the latter being aspects that clients will happily pay a premium for.

Real-world investing involves ambiguity, emotion, and rapidly shifting conditions that can’t always be captured by empirical data. In trying to reduce investing to a science, this approach inadvertently strips away the art and intuition that are also vital to navigating financial markets successfully. As a result, it will lead to underperformance or missed opportunities when the markets behave in ways that historical evidence simply can’t predict.

Whilst it’s great to see differing flavors of kiwisavers coming to market, independent financial advisors (or at least those who claim to be) must remain open-minded to all investment styles and strategies to support their clients objectives.
Especially now.

On 22 April 2025 at 10:09 pm John Milner said:

Pragmatic, thinking about your comments, I remember just after the lockdowns I spoke with a Kiwi who had lectured at Yale for 40 years, alongside Noble Prize Laureate Robert Shiller. He said the trouble with academics, we don’t all agree.

Then there was the active funds BDM at a FANZ conference I asked what their investment philosophy was. Sadly he didn’t know but offered me a free pen.

My point being, for a large number of advisers in their careers, the Evidential KiwiSaver will be a safe product to use. It has a strong set of rules and will have a high level of long term certainty for clients. Meaning, long term cash flow planning can be achieved with certainty. I wouldn’t want to attempt this with some funds.

As an adviser we have to decide whether we want to attempt picking the fund manager with the highest returns or who is most consistent for long term planning. The trouble with picking the highest return manager is, they are rarely the same from year to year, decade to decade. If you’re not providing long term certainty, what are you providing?

On 24 April 2025 at 10:16 am Pragmatic said:

Thanks @John Milner for a considered response.

I tend to agree with your statement that passive/quasi passive/evidence-based investing provides relative predictability - a nice bell curve of outcomes, and the soothing comfort of not being wrong, just average. And that’s a convenient approach for uber-long savers such as Kiwisavers who continue to contribute to their nest-eggs without the desire to review their progress often. My contribution to this approach is to ensure that your preferred investment gateway is at the budget end of the price spectrum so that the investor is not paying a premium for mediocrity.

Academia is full of nuance, debate, and elegant footnotes. And while I’m sure a Kiwi ex-Yale lecturer has forgotten more about market theory than I’ve had hot dinners, markets are not laboratories. They’re messy, emotional, irrational places. Shiller himself has spoken often about market inefficiencies and irrational exuberance. So if we accept that markets aren’t always rational, isn’t there room for managers who actively spot and exploit those inefficiencies?

And yet active investing is not easy. It is not a set and forget “she’ll be right” approach. It’s about finding managers with a consistent process, an edge, and discipline. It’s about understanding their philosophy (yes, even if the pen-wielding BDM doesn’t), not just chasing heat charts that illustrate annualised performance superiority over the past 13 weeks.

Whilst certainty is lovely for long-term planning, flexibility around both market and client events is crucial for long-term success. Markets change. Regimes shift. Life gets in the way.

My central point (in response to the claims in this article) is that no single investment approach is divine, and that all advisers must be open to all categories. Despite the relentless argument from passive enthusiasts, active investing is not about betting the house or chasing unicorns. It’s about strategic decisions, tactical allocations, and managers who have the freedom - and the skill - to act when markets wobble. This approach can / should be balanced with ultra-low-cost beta strategies to provide investors with a collaborative solution for their investments.

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