Fisher Funds has emerged as the most popular KiwiSaver provider among the political classes, according to the latest parliamentary disclosures, by dint of its 2022 purchase of the formerly government-owned Kiwi Wealth.
According to the just-published ‘Register of pecuniary and other specified interests’ of MPs, Fisher counts 17 Members among its members including six sourced from the rebranded Kiwi Wealth scheme (now known as the Fisher Funds KiwiSaver Plan).
Bar the Kiwi Wealth deal, Fisher (now headed by former National MP, Simon Power) would’ve ranked third in the parliamentarian pop charts behind ASB with 14 MPs aboard its scheme and AMP – the latter on 12 or 13 depending on Prime Minister Chris Luxon.
Luxon lists both AMP and Westpac as his KiwiSaver provider, which is not possible under current legislation but perhaps signals National plans to follow-through on its pre-election promise of multi-scheme membership.
At any rate, AMP remains more popular in the Labour camp where seven MPs claim allegiance to the brand compared to just four in National.
The collapse of the Labour vote at the last election hit the AMP MP quota, too, with the Australian-owned KiwiSaver scheme losing almost half of its parliamentary caucus compared to a similar previous pecuniary big reveal in 2020.
In the National ranks, Simplicity pips by one both Fisher and ASB (tied on six apiece) as the most-favoured scheme. Simplicity has historical links to National, of course, with former president of the party, Michelle Boag, instrumental in launching the low-cost KiwiSaver provider in 2016.
But Simplicity has proven attractive to the opposite side of the political spectrum as well, winning KiwiSaver equal-first prize among the Greens along with ethical investment specialist, Pathfinder, in claiming four MPs each.
Pathfinder goes well with Green, naturally, and counts co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick as a member: Swarbrick, whose father is a financial adviser, also discloses the most diversified managed fund portfolio of all MPs with 23 products in total.
The other minor parties Act, NZ First and Te Pāti Māori, mainly display bank-heavy vanilla KiwiSaver tastes bar a trailblazing Act politician, Andrew Hoggard – the only MP in the self-select Sharesies scheme.
Despite some small sample-size statistical quirks, MP KiwiSaver preferences broadly reflect the general population with bank-owned schemes the majority in a house also well-represented by popular local brands (Fisher, Milford, Simplicity, Booster) plus a Generate or two and the odd outliers.
As per the post-election experience for AMP, however, the number one KiwiSaver provider in the real world, ANZ, saw its political influence slashed compared to 2020: just seven MPs now belong to an ANZ scheme down from 19 four years ago.
