The Australian regulator has given award-winning NZ firm Shareclarity the tick of approval under a new fintech fast-track licensing process. Daniel Kieser, Shareclarity founder, said with its newly-minted Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) the company was well-placed to tap into the huge demand for equity research across the Tasman from self-managed superannuation fund trustees and… [Read More…]
Investment News
… as ASIC gives advice for robots
Digital advice providers in Australia have been given six months to comply with new rules released by ASIC last week. According to the ASIC regulatory guideline titled ‘Providing digital financial product advice to retail clients’, so-called ‘robo-advice’ has taken off in Australia over the last couple of years, prompting the need for greater clarity on… [Read More…]
How institutional investors can profit from the banks’ woes
Making money from the new challenges facing big banks should warm the cockles of any investor’s heart. PIMCO shows how in a paper titled ‘Disruptive Regulation – A Secular Investment Opportunity’. The paper, written by Christian Stracke, PIMCO’s global head of credit research, and Tom Collier, product manager alternative investment strategies, says the many reforms… [Read More…]
MMC wins high-flying KiwiSaver client
Auckland-based fund administrator, MMC, has notched up its second KiwiSaver registry client in the space of a month. MMC, which already provides fund accounting and unit pricing services to a range of KiwiSaver schemes, confirmed the rapidly-growing NZ-owned provider Generate as its second registry client last week. Earlier this month MMC revealed the start-up low-cost… [Read More…]
MJW to lose its W
After almost 35 years of intellectual input to New Zealand’s actuarial and investment consulting industry, Mark Weaver, has called it quits. Weaver, the last remaining founding partner still working in the triple-titled consulting firm Melville Jessup Weaver (MJW), will hand in his final regression analysis at the end next month before embarking on a well-earned… [Read More…]
Cluster fund breach a police matter, Minister says
It would be up to the police to decide whether KiwiSaver schemes, or other NZ investors, are breaking the law by investing in pooled global equity funds that have exposure to cluster munitions manufacturers, according to Commerce Minister Paul Goldsmith. As well as the Cluster Munitions Prohibition Act 2009, NZ investors could face similar problematic… [Read More…]
Coming in at 70: it’s the final (MIS) countdown
The complete set of managed investment scheme (MIS) managers list should tally to about 70, according to the latest figures supplied by the regulator. A spokesperson for the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) told Investment News NZ that 42 managers have already been granted a MIS licence with a further 18 “in various stages of assessment”…. [Read More…]
NZ Super Vs Australia’s Future Fund: you be the judge
New Zealand Superannuation Fund has carved out NZ$600 million from its NZ$4.9 billion passive global equities mandate with Northern Trust Asset Management for two new factor-based mandates with the same manager. The NZ$30 billion fund, which is seen as a bellwether among super funds in the region because of its transparency and innovative investment strategies… [Read More…]
Heads up for Milford
Almost five months after incumbent, Anthony Quirk, announced his imminent resignation, Milford Asset Management has a new head. In a release last week, Milford confirmed Australian Troy Swann would take over Quirk’s role as at October 31 this year with operations chief, Bryce Marsden, continuing as interim chief executive. Quirk officially ended his nine-year stint… [Read More…]
NSW court hands manager $400,000 fine for van Eyk failings
Macquarie Investment Management has been slapped with a A$400,000 fine after a New South Wales court ruled it had failed in its duties to monitor the now-defunct van Eyk Blueprint International Shares Fund (VBI). In a decision released last Wednesday, the NSW Supreme Court found Macquarie had breached its duties as a responsible entity (or… [Read More…]