Supporting information:
Historical data (Excel spreadsheet)Basic information: Managed Funds Survey (MFS) (Tables C14-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 funds assets, by product category. Industry restructuring has 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 trusts and group investment fund vehicles; funds with a life insurance component; superannuation funds and ‘other’. 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. 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 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 |
The current list of MFS Respondents, applicable from December 2003 onwards, is drawn from the annual survey of managed funds that the Bank completed for the first time in 2001. 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 “Help” screen that specifies completion directions and data definitions for respondents completing the survey. |
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Dissemination of ... 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 Morningstar. 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 28 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) measured by the quarterly and an unpublished annual survey. 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 from the outset has been 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 ‘other funds’ column is not collected through product classes listed above.
Life insurance has two product classifications: ‘unitised products’ 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 ‘employment-related’, that is, from a registered employer scheme (irrespective of whether there is an employer contribution), or ‘other’, commonly referred to as ‘retail’ schemes.
General comments
Data published in the survey are FUM attributable to clients, not total assets. This is particularly relevant to life insurance data, where the industry’s assets are 25 per cent greater than reported FUM. 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 ‘other fund’ categories (the latter in particular) include substantial non-household funds, in total representing around 20% 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 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 2002, total non-household FUM obtained from the quarterly and annual surveys were over $4 billion. Non-household FUM in the quarterly survey at December 2003 were more than $4 billion. For FUM totals that are not sourced from households, quarterly data are little less than the full annual total. For households, quarterly totals are less than annual totals principally in the unit trust, superannuation and ‘other fund’ categories.
Clive Thorp:
Email: clive.thorp@rbnz.govt.nz
Telephone: (64 4) 471-3652
