Peters misses mark on fees

The NZ First leader told party faithful yesterday that a “bottom line” for his party being part of any coalition after the election was KiwiSaver being brought under Government management.

He said managers had already made $325 million in fees out of the scheme and “there’s worse to come”. He said an independent source had said managers would take $22 billion in fees over the next 30 years.

FSC chief executive Peter Nielson said the current level of fees had been certified as not unreasonable by the Government Actuary.  He said they were lower than Australia and likely to decrease as funds under management grew. Account fees were higher then they could be because of the large number of small accounts that managers had to deal with, he said. As balances grew, there would be economies of scale.

“People who are unhappy with KiwiSaver management fees have a wide choice of over 20 providers who compete vigorously for the business and there will be further scrutiny with fee levels included in the Government’s tender criteria for selecting KiwiSaver default fund providers for the next seven years.”