Born on July 1, 2007, KiwiSaver hit the legally adult age of 18 on the same date this year.
In its early days, the quasi-compulsory retirement savings regime grew at an extraordinary rate as New Zealanders piled en masse into schemes through a mix of auto-enrolment and voluntary entry – mostly the latter.
The rate-of-growth has naturally slowed over the last few years as the pool of eligible, and willing, non-members drained ever-lower.
But as the just-released 2025 edition of the long-running Investment News NZ KiwiSaver sector study reveals, the 12 months to March 31 this year capped off a new low in member-growth.
According to the review of all 38 scheme annual reports for 2025, the KiwiSaver population expanded by only 51,422 members, representing a growth-rate of 1.5 per cent: over the same period ending March 31, 2024, the market grew by about 80,000, or 2.4 per cent.
As the ‘K-18: the adults-only year’ report highlights, however, competition among providers for existing, and larger-balance, members ratcheted-up amid the dearth of first-timers.
The data shows the number of members swapping schemes over the 12 months to March 31, 2025, rose to about 165,000 – more than three-times the net growth in overall KiwiSaver membership.
Transfers between schemes amounted to over $5.5 billion in the 2024/25 year, most of which accrued to a handful of NZ-owned schemes at the expense of bank-owned providers. Milford Asset Management alone netted $1.5 billion plus of the transfer proceeds while ANZ leaked about $1 billion to rivals.
Several other smaller schemes offering broad investment choice to members including InvestNow, Kernel and Sharesies also hit their straps in the year, collectively luring close to $400 million and 11,000 members from other providers.
As well as enhanced transfer trends, the latest 12-month period saw changes in funds under management, member dynamics, fee-hauls and investment returns: the free now showing live K-18 report reveals all.
A complete set of the data in Excel spreadsheet form, covering member and funds under management trends; fees and expenses; investment returns; scheme transfers and other metrics, is available for the ageless fee of $460 plus GST ($529 including GST).
Please contact the author at david@investmentnews.co.nz or ph +64 21 022 575 03 for further details.