The KiwiSaver pool sloshed over the $50 billion mark during the June quarter aided by regular flows and a gush of investment returns, the latest Strategic Insight (SI) data shows.
According to the SI research, the KiwiSaver market filled up more than $2.3 billion over the three months to June 30, ending the quarter at almost $50.8 billion of funds under management (FUM).
The period marked an almost return-to-form for the largest NZ KiwiSaver firm, ANZ, which clocked up a 4.7 per cent growth rate for the quarter – a tad below the 4.8 per cent industry average.
ANZ, which has been slightly off the pace for the last year or so, was the best of the big boys for the June quarter with all seven of the largest KiwiSaver schemes falling behind the average growth rate: ranging from 2.7 per cent for Mercer to 4.5 per cent for ASB, the second-largest provider.
Conversely, the bottom half of the SI table outperformed growth-wise during the three-month period led by the Auckland boutique, Generate, which added 17.7 per cent to its FUM-base to close the first half of 2018 at $837 million.
Both Milford and BNZ continued on trend growing their KiwiSaver schemes 9.5 per cent and 8.3 per cent, respectively, over the three months to June 30.
BNZ, which now boasts almost $1.8 billion under management is closing in on the seventh-largest scheme, Mercer ($1.86 billion), but still lags its Australian-owned bank buddies by at some margin in the KiwiSaver stakes: ANZ reports almost $12.3 billion followed by ASB ($8.9 billion) and Westpac ($5.8 billion).
The NZX-owned Smartshares scheme and Wellington-headquartered boutique provider, Booster, also racked up above-average quarterly growth rates of about 5.5 per cent apiece.
Of the smaller schemes listed in the SI survey, only Aon slipped under the average, growing 4.4 per cent over the quarter.
However, the 20-odd schemes lumped under the ‘other’ category in the SI data collectively increased FUM by 5.5 per cent over the period.
The SI data shows ‘others’ accounted just under $2 billion – or almost 3.9 per cent – of the total KiwiSaver FUM as at June 30.
Passive investment scheme, Simplicity, represents about $400 million of the ‘other’ FUM – putting it just beyond the SI radar reach, which pings out at the $521 million Aon scheme.