Adviser complains about KiwiSaver campaign

Gareth Dobson, founder and senior financial adviser at Finsol Financial Advisers, said he was concerned that the bank was advertising that its conservative and moderate funds were “number one” in the market, based on a 12-month period to the end of December.

“ASB defends this position as factually accurate because of fine-print disclaimers.”

But he said KiwiSaver was a long-term investment tool and the funds had not performed as well over three, five or 10-year periods.

“Being an investment and KiwiSaver adviser, you stay across historical returns from all the various providers, there’s consistent reports from Morningstar, there’s different sources for returns data. So when I saw this advertisement from ASB pop up on my screen, and I’m an ASB customer as well, I thought ‘oh that’s interesting’."