Supporting information:
Historical data (Excel spreadsheet)
Special noteBasic information: Managed Funds Survey (MFS) Table C15
The Data: Coverage, Periodicity, and Timeliness |
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Coverage characteristics |
Data are published in millions of New Zealand dollars. The quarterly release occurs on the Bank’s website at 3pm. Until December 2002, the following tables are available: C14 managed funds by institution and C15, managed fund assets and products. Industry restructuring reduced the number of respondents in the registered banks category, giving rise to confidentiality issues. From March 2003, only C15 is updated. The data are collected by electronic template from MFS respondents. The funds they manage are classified in four groups: life insurance policyholders’ funds; superannuation funds (with KiwiSaver identified separately from March 2008), unit trust and group investment funds; and ‘all other funds’. Respondent institutions were grouped as life offices, registered banks and other fund managers until December 2002, when this format was discontinued. From 1996 to 1998 the survey attempted to cover all fund managers. It was revised from March 1999 to include large funds only, and a few key funds previously omitted were included. Coverage was approximately 85 percent of the estimated total managed funds market at the outset, falling to around 80 percent by September 2003. From the December 2003 quarter, coverage increased to include all fund managers with funds under management of more than $500 million, which covers 95 percent of the market. There are therefore three separate time series: the historical series from March 1996 to September 1998; the series from March 1999 to September 2003 and the latest series beginning in December 2003. The survey does not include funds from the New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZSF). Data about these funds are available on the NZSF website. December 1998 quarter data are not available, but for that date an estimate for household Funds Under Management (FUM) is included in the long-run household financial assets and liabilities series. |
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Periodicity |
Quarterly. As at the last business day. |
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Timeliness |
Released during the eighth week following the last business day of the quarter. |
Access by the public |
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Advance release calendar |
The “Advance Release Calendar” is also updated and released each Friday on the website. This is a long-term plan of scheduled releases. |
Integrity |
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Dissemination of terms and conditions under which official statistics are produced, including confidentiality of individual responses |
Data are collected under Section 36 of The Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1989 (The Act). The Reserve Bank of New Zealand publishes only aggregated data. Individual institutional data is confidential. |
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Provision of information about revisions and advance notice of major changes in methodology |
Provisional data are italicised. Data are deemed provisional when a series is under review. New data, or revised data, are in bold font. Revisions are generally published when the table is next due to be updated and released. Should revisions need to be made more promptly, a note is posted on the Internet website under “Revisions to Tables”. Any major changes in methodology are posted on the website as a note. |
Quality |
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Dissemination of documentation on methodology and sources used in preparing statistics |
Data are collected in collaboration with Statistics New Zealand. The templates completed by respondents contain sections for both the Reserve Bank and Statistics New Zealand. An Excel Template is completed and returned each quarter by the MFS Institutions. This template incorporates a set of guidelines that lays out completion instructions and data definitions for respondents completing the survey. |
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Dissemination of statistics that support statistical cross-check and provide assurance of reasonableness |
Some indication of the reasonableness of these figures may be gained from the data published by commercial survey companies. The RBNZ data are more comprehensive, including in particular, ‘wholesale’ funds management. |
General survey notes relevant to the revised MFS Table C15 series implemented from December 2003
Change to survey population
From December 2003, the data for the quarterly Managed Funds Survey (MFS) are from the 27 largest fund managers in New Zealand. The revised quarterly survey obtains an estimated 95 percent of the total funds under management (FUM).
Product categories
The key organising principle for the survey is to classify FUM by the tax regime or registration requirement applied to fund ‘products’ purchased by customers.
Life insurance FUM are defined as the equivalent of ‘policyholders’ funds under the relevant life insurance legislation.
FUM are classified as superannuation funds if they are assets of a registered superannuation scheme. Superannuation FUM must be in a registered superannuation fund and are classified according to whether funds being managed are ‘KiwiSaver’, that is, they are invested through a registered KiwiSaver scheme, or ‘all other’, that is, non KiwiSaver superannuation schemes.
The ‘Unit trusts and GIFs’ category comprises FUM in all GIFs and unit trusts that are not otherwise life insurance or superannuation. (Unit trusts and GIFs are legal vehicles for the investment of pooled savings, and life insurance and superannuation FUM may be managed in these legal vehicles.)
Finally, ‘other funds managed’ are all FUM not reported in the other three main categories.
General comments
Data published in the managed funds survey are FUM attributable to customers, not total assets of funds or life insurance companies, for example. While FUM for life and pension products are entirely household in source, unit trust and ‘all other funds managed’ categories (the latter in particular) include substantial non-household funds, in total representing approximately 20 percent of FUM in these two product categories. Non-household funds include funds managed on behalf of charities and non-profit organisations serving households, as well as life insurance and general insurance reserves and commercial funds, most frequently in the form of fixed interest assets.
While published data in the quarterly survey are total FUM, the survey is also the source (along with the annual survey) of the household/non-household split that is used as the basis of the long-run household managed fund series. At December 2010, total non-household FUM obtained from the quarterly and annual surveys was around $7 billion.
KiwiSaver
The KiwiSaver scheme is a voluntary, long-term retirement savings scheme which came into operation on 2 July 2007. The legal framework was established in the KiwiSaver Act (2006).
KiwiSaver participants choose to put their savings in an approved KiwiSaver scheme, many of which are run by New Zealand fund managers. Fund managers began receiving contributions from KiwiSaver schemes from 1 October 2007. The vast bulk of contributions managed by schemes are invested with the large fund managers surveyed in the Reserve Bank of New Zealand quarterly Managed Funds Survey (MFS). From December 2007, the Bank started collecting KiwiSaver FUM from MFS respondents.
At December 2007 there was an estimated $378 million of KiwiSaver FUM. This is reported in table C15 as part of ‘other superannuation’. KiwiSaver was not published separately in December 2007 as the asset class breakdown was not available. From March 2008, KiwiSaver FUM are reported separately by asset class (in the same way as other product categories in table C15). KiwiSaver FUM were first published in table C15 in November 2008, backdated to March 2008.
The Government Actuary reports the total of FUM managed by KiwiSaver schemes registered at 31 March every year. At March 2011, funds in the quarterly managed funds survey held around 93 percent of the total. The remainder is administered by schemes and/or invested with smaller funds (those with total FUM less than $500m).
Important points to note when interpreting KiwiSaver statistics are:
- The quarterly MFS collects information on the value of FUM as at the end of each quarter. The difference between quarters can reflect a number of changes, including customers injecting or withdrawing funds, revaluation due to currency movements and revaluation in asset prices.
- KiwiSaver participants receive tax credits, which are credited to KiwiSaver accounts once a year, in the September quarter.
- Three months after participants first join KiwiSaver the government credits their KiwiSaver account with a $1,000 ‘kickstart’ contribution.
- Quarterly MFS statistics do not cover all KiwiSaver FUM. Excluded are funds managed by small fund managers (less than $500m FUM) and some schemes.
- Quarterly MFS statistics include funds ‘in transit’ with IRD that are yet to be distributed to the participants’ KiwiSaver schemes.
Further information about KiwiSaver can be found here:
