Defaultlines: cracks form in the KiwiSaver facade

Defaultlines: cracks form in the KiwiSaver facade
A Russell study calls out the wide variation of returns between the six default funds as a serious issue of concern. (Image: Getty)
David Chaplin
“Hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders will be significantly better off in retirement following changes to the default KiwiSaver scheme,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson and then Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister David Clark blahed in May 2021.Well maybe, but on the evidence so far, the default scheme reboot which kicked off in December of the same year has delivered sub-par performance across an unacceptably broad range of returns, according to a new Russell Investments NZ analysis of the KiwiSaver market.In a sequel to its...

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