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: Table C14, managed funds, by institution and C15, managed fund assets and products. Industry restructuring reduced the number of respondents to 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: unit trust and group investment funds; life insurance policyholders funds; superannuation funds (with KiwiSaver identified separately from March 2008) and ‘all other managed 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% of the estimated total managed funds market at the outset, falling to around 80% by September 2003. From the December 2003 quarter, coverage increased with the addition of 11 new fund managers, lifting it to an estimated 90% 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. Coverage in the latest series was revised to include all fund managers with funds under management at December 2007 of more than $500 million. The series was revised on this scope definition from 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 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. |
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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 in the quarter of release. Revisions are generally published when the table is next updated and released. Should revisions need to be made more promptly, a note is posted on the website under Revisions to Tables. |
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. A copy of the Excel Template that is completed and returned each quarter by the MFS Institutions is available. 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-checks 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
The data for the quarterly Managed Funds Survey (MFS) from December 2003 onwards are from the 23 largest of the more than 50 managed funds, pension funds and large charities surveyed annually at December. The revised quarterly survey obtains an estimated 90% of the total funds under management (FUM). Abbreviated data categories are obtained from ‘non-quarterly’ sources in the annual survey and product totals related to households from both surveys are reported in the long-run household asset and liability series.
Product categories
The key organising principle for the survey is to obtain FUM classified by the tax regime applied to fund products as they are presented to the fund customer. The tax regimes for unit trust, life insurance, and superannuation products are different, and the organising principle for the data collection is to track fund growth in this context. FUM are classified as superannuation funds if they belong to a registered superannuation scheme. Group Investment Funds (GIFs) have two classes with different tax treatments, A and B under the Trustee Companies Act 1967, but confidentiality concerns again preclude publishing the distinction, and they are included with unit trust data. FUM in the ‘all other funds managed’ category is all funds not collected through product classes listed above.
The life insurance category includes both ‘unitised’ and ‘non-unitised’ products. Unitised products, which include all life bond investments, also include products incorporating a life insurance element where the return is not dependent on an actuarial process. Non-unitised life products are principally traditional whole of life and endowment policies.
Superannuation funds under management 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 schemes.
KiwiSaver - additional comments
KiwiSaver (FUM) were first published in table C15 in November 2008, backdated to March 2008.
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 23 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 ‘all other superannuation’. From March 2008 KiwiSaver FUM are reported separately by asset class (in the same way as other product categories in table C15).
The Government Actuary reports the total of FUM managed by KiwiSaver schemes registered at 31 March every year. At March 2008 and 2009, fund managers surveyed in the MFS managed over 95 percent of the total. The remainder is administered by schemes and/or invested with smaller funds (those with total FUM less than $500m at December 2007).
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.
KiwiSaver and other data for managed funds may be accessed here
For further information on these data please contact stats-info@rbnz.govt.nz
Further information about KiwiSaver can be found here:
General comments
Data published in the survey are FUM attributable to clients, not total assets. For all product categories, data are FUM from all client categories. 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 over 15% 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 2009, total non-household FUM obtained from the quarterly and annual surveys was around $7 billion.
Graham Howard:
Email: graham.howard@rbnz.govt.nz
Telephone: (64 4) 471-3728
