Investment News

Counter to global trends, NZ fintech firms won’t be offered a regulation-lite play zone, Rob Everett, Financial Markets Authority (FMA) chief, told media last week. Launching the FMA’s updated ‘Strategic risk outlook’ (SRO), Everett said he was not convinced about the value of the fintech ‘sandbox’ or accelerator hub models recently adopted by offshore regulators… [Read More…]

Funds management remains a must-have accessory for any self-respecting bank despite the heightened regulatory and conduct risks involved, according to John Kensington, KPMG NZ head of banking and finance. Kensington said the relatively recent entree of institutions outside the Australian-owned tight four into the funds management space – such as Kiwibank’s 2012 purchase of the-then… [Read More…]

Leo Krippner, Reserve Bank of NZ (RBNZ) senior adviser and former AMP Capital NZ head of investment strategy, has won a top global award for influential work modeling yield curvature in unconventional monetary times. Krippner, who resigned from AMP nine years ago to join the RBNZ, picked up the ‘Economics in Central Banking Award’ from… [Read More…]

Way back in the good old days of 2015 one of the Investment News NZ (IN NZ) foundation documents laid out the rationale for its existence like so: “In theory, this should be a fertile period for news in New Zealand’s investment scene. “As well as the inexorable driving force of KiwiSaver, which is fueling… [Read More…]

BNZ has joined the post-Financial Markets Conduct Act (FMC) product renaissance with the launch of a new range of funds under its own banner. And for the first time, too, BNZ will provide direct access for NZ investors to a product manufactured by its parent National Australia Bank (NAB) as one of the four underlying… [Read More…]

NZ boutique fund managers have all but given up hope of winning the long-running dispute on the GST treatment of fees after the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) confirmed its commitment to zero-rating last week. In the brace of much-delayed ‘questions we’ve been asked’ (QWBA) draft exposure documents released last Thursday, the IRD essentially condemns fund… [Read More…]

The NSW Government’s $75 billion fund T-Corp, which represents an amalgamation of the investment operations of three fiduciary investment pools, is finalising its senior management team after a spill of several positions. The key CIO role is to be filled by an outsider. Stewart Brentnall will take up the role, replacing the acting CIO Mark… [Read More…]

The in-vitro Financial Advice NZ industry body will have to digest a “vast and well-thought-out” supplement of member feedback before embarking on its final 20-day gestation period, according to Fred Dodds, part of the working group overseeing the birth process. In a statement released last week, Institute of Financial Advisers (IFA) chief Dodds, along with… [Read More…]

Steve Merlicek, IOOF Holdings’ star fund manager, is retiring from full-time work in funds management, from the end of June. His deputy, Dan Farmer, will take over as CIO. Merlicek, who has taken most of the multi-manager retail funds from bottom to top quartile in his seven-year tenure as CIO of IOOF, foreshadowed his move… [Read More…]

Ian Dunbar, head of NZ-inspired fintech firm, SuiteBox, follows up on his previous review of the sector with a warning for consumers to separate the buzz from the bull.   #Fintech, #WealthTech, #InsureTech, #DigitalMortgages, #P2PLending, #Crowdfunding, #Cryptocurrencies and so on. The list of buzzwords that dominate the landscape of tech innovation in financial services grows… [Read More…]