A cluster of ‘modest’ accounts: what KiwiSaver balances really look like

Until now, nothing been published about the actual balances of KiwiSaver’s 3.09 million members, with most statistics focusing on averages. For example, the FMA’s annual KiwiSaver report for 2021 says the average balance across all funds is $26,410. Previous surveys of KiwiSaver accounts have been limited to average balances, total fund size and total contributions.

But averages don’t tell the whole story, says Ian Perera, the convenor of RIIG (the Retirement Income Interest Group, a subgroup of the NZ Society of Actuaries) and are “not particularly helpful” when it comes to KiwiSaver.

They tend to be higher than the median, which produces a more realistic picture as a few large balances can skew the average. “You learn a lot more by understanding the differences than by just taking the average,” he says.

RIIG’s survey and analysis focused on how individual account balances are distributed, revealing a cluster of low KiwiSaver balances at the bottom of the scale and a “tail” of large balances, including a few outliers of more than $1 million, at the other end.