Kiwibank hires 5 advisers while AMP tipped as fund provider

Kiwibank will open its new 'Wealth' financial planning division this March with five advisers already signed up with the organisation.

Wednesday, February 18th 2009, 5:05AM

by David Chaplin

According to Tracey Berry, Wealth general manager, the five advisers, who officially start work on March 9, will act as a pilot group for Kiwibank as it fine-tunes its product and service offering.

“We want to establish the best path forward and test a few things,” Berry said.

She said the Kiwibank Wealth advisers will offer an “holistic” range of financial services products targeted at average New Zealanders rather than top-end high net worth clients. As well as selling Kiwibank's range of banking, risk and KiwiSaver products, the Wealth planners would also be promoting the bank's new suite of multi-manager products, which Berry said should be ready for launch early in March.

Currently, Kiwibank sells a range of white-labeled insurance products, backed by Cigna Life and Tower, PIE cash funds and term deposits, and a KiwiSaver product in conjunction with Mercer.

It is understood that AMP has won the contract to create the multi-manager products for Kiwibank, however, Berry would not confirm or deny its appointment.

Under the terms of the 'request for proposal' (RFP) issued by Kiwibank last year, AMP would also be responsible for providing client services such as registry as well as to support the Wealth advisers with training and online tools.

Berry said the first batch of Wealth advisers would be based in Wellington, Tauranga, Hamilton and Hastings but other advisers are expected to join the network soon.

“I don't have a sense of how big [Wealth] will be – we will evolve with the market,” Berry said. “But it will certainly have more than five advisers.”

She said Kiwibank also planned to involve its advisers in financial literary projects with schools and other community groups.

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