KiwiSaver funds help Trustees grow

Trustee Corporations Association of New Zealand inc

Media Statement - for immediate release - Friday 12 November 2010

KiwiSaver funds help Trustees grow

Supervising trust deeds and providing back office services to KiwiSaver funds is helping the county's five Trustee corporations grow their businesses.

The five are Guardian Trust, Trustees Executors, Public Trust, Perpetual Trust and Covenant Trustee.

In total, they supervised 1310 issues worth nearly $160 billion as at 30 June this year, up 12% from the same time in 2009.

These securities included KiwiSaver and superannuation trusts, capital market issues, unit trusts, debt securities and retirement villages.

"While we've had a high profile in relation to finance companies in recent years, the reality is that they represent a small part of our business," said the Chairman of the Trustee Corporations Association, Mr Clynton Hardy.

In addition, the Trustees have seen huge growth in back office services for KiwiSaver funds, which includes maintaining investor records and providing custody and accounting services for each fund.

"There has been an increase of over 30 % in KiwiSaver membership numbers for the year to 30 June, so the increase in work in this area has been phenomenal," Mr Hardy said.

Aside from this corporate trust work, personal trust activity has remained steady, with the 5 Trustee companies managing over 26,000 trusts with funds in excess of $6.3 billion.

With a completely new regulatory regime on its way for the Trustees, the TCA says there are still some areas that need "to be ironed out."

"We welcome the new Trustee licensing regime and the advent of the Financial Markets Authority. We don't believe any of our members will have trouble meeting the new standards of accountability," said Mr Hardy.

"However, if we're to help achieve the common goal of restoring investor confidence, then we need high quality information. While we're pleased to see auditor registration introduced, we're not happy with the level of auditing assurance the market is currently receiving, and we'll be raising our concerns with government."

ENDS

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