KiwiSaver could help fill advice gap

Hawes is also chair of the investment committee of the Forsyth Barr KiwiSaver scheme, Summer, and is on the board of variable annuity provider Lifetime.

He said it was hard for people “in the middle”, who might have $100,000 to $200,000 saved, to get personalised advice.

Many financial advisers found it hard to achieve diversification with smaller sums and those people tended to default to invest in term deposits that proved insufficient.

Suggesting that people read up on the principles of investment was no substitute, he said, because while it was possible to master the concepts most people found it much more difficult to apply it to their own situations.