New Zealand's newly established KiwiSaver super system has some clear advantages when pitted against Australia's super system, according to a recent study by Mercer.
There are two key lessons that the Australian superannuation industry can learn from the KiwiSaver scheme to improve the nation's retirement savings system, Mercer's head of retirement Paul Newfield told InvestorDaily.
"There is no doubt that New Zealand's single account framework, where each KiwiSaver member has one account, delivers multiple benefits," he said.
"On average Australians have 2.8 super accounts per individual, where many of those accounts charge fixed fees per month, so for example $5 per member, per month.
"So if you have got three accounts you are paying three times as much as a person who has got one account."
Unlike the Australian superannuation system, the KiwiSaver scheme also has a universal clearing house, Newfield said.
"The clearing house just pays the contributions to the tax office, similar to how you pay PAYG tax to the tax office, and they just send the contributions everywhere," he said.
"So that has also been quite a big benefit and I know that they are looking at that in Australia."
KiwiSaver was introduced in July 2007.
More than 800,000 New Zealanders have since signed up to the scheme, representing an uptake of nearly half of the nation's 1.7 million working population.
