Shane Solly: Harbour Asset Management spokesperson on the Government's plan to shake up Kiwisaver rules

The finance industry is approving a shake up to KiwiSaver.

The Government is looking at loosening the rules about where people can put their savings - as part of a package of reforms it's considering to unlock capital.

Harbour Asset Management spokesperson Shane Solly explains further.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Shame solely with US harbor Asset Management. Shane, Good evening,
Cure Ran, good to have you on. As we head
into the end of the year. How has the year
been for investors in your view?

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Oh, look, it's a great question, Race, Ryan. It's actually
been a good year. It's been all about inflation coming down,
which has allowed central banks to cut these official interest rates.
But it's actually been pretty challenging for how to deal
with things like wars and some pretty meaningful elections. Ryan,
it's really challenged sentiment. But yeah, we've certainly seen bond
years lower. Been a strong year for global share returns,

(00:31):
particularly the US market up over twenty eight percent, usually
on share market don't okay, up eight percent, and some
of the more speculative assets like crypto and goal they've
had sort of all time high level. So yeah, it's
been a pretty good year.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Government announced last week and we covered this the changes
that are going to come to regulator, changes that will
give key we savor providers the chance to invest in
private assets. Do you think that we will see lots
of that happening.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, a really really good point. So you come back
to you know what, why does this legislation change or
regulation change count because at the moment, as a kevsaver provider,
if you come in and say I want to change provider,
I have to liquidate all the assets so that you
can move your funds to another location. That's hard to
do with private assets. So this new proposed regulation of

(01:17):
our side pocketing, so it means those in business are
less liquid private assets. They can be treated separately when
you change from keV servers. So I think it will
open up the opportunities here. It'll take some time. We've
got a lot of water run under the bridge in
terms of you know, what is the regulation, But yeah,
I think it's a good start point. It's an important
move for QV savers and for New Zealand over time.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Does that mean we could see keV saver funds investing
in k WE Bank all the ferries.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Look, I think it's possible. You know, we are seeing
you know, it depends about the quality of investments and
the price of those assets. The key thing here is
it opens up a new pipeline of opportunities to grow
qvs as wealth. Remember that's three and a half million
Kiwis have a q so it's really crucially growing there well,
so yeah, if Kiwi Saver, sorry, if kwibank stacks up,

(02:08):
then there'll be a good advertise. And yes, maybe even
the enter Island theories if the right frame. There's a
little way to go there though. I've got to say.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
We've kicked off the week with some new data, some
economic data. Are you seeing any green shoots there?

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah? Look, it was an interesting day, a bit of
a mix. Some inflation data to continue to slow, which
allows the Reserve Bank and ZELD to continue to cut,
and we've seen a little bit of improvement and business
sentiment for QI households is where it really matters. Food
prices were down for them to de member month, down
minus one percent versus the previous month, and residential rents
were out er point two of a percent. It sounds like, man,

(02:43):
well that's not down, it's actually slowing from where it was,
so again taking pressure off. But the interesting thing was
we saw another lift in business sentiment in terms of
the New Zealand Performance of Services Index. Now that is
an index that measures confidence from service providers. If it's
about fifty means they're growing expanding. If it's below fifty,
then they're contracting. It was forty nine point five. It

(03:05):
was almost expanding up from forty six point two last month,
so hitting in the right direction. But you know our
friends from the economists, the ins of the ir insid
III should so did a carly Server economists and use
An economists. They're expecting no growth for twenty four to
twenty five, so they're still about beerish. Hard to get
them excited.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
There, Shane, Thank you for that, Shane Soley, Harbor Asset Management.
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