A new report has revealed the best and worst-performing KiwiSaver funds for the first quarter of 2024.
The report, by self-appointed industry watchdog National Capital, was released on Tuesday and gave several insights into how New Zealanders are using KiwiSaver.
It also revealed some of the best and worst-performing funds.
The report showed average 1-year returns ranged from 7.21 percent for conservative funds to 18.87 percent for High Growth funds.
It also found all funds yielded positive 1-year returns to the March 2024 quarter. This is despite continual economic uncertainty and rising unemployment.
Meanwhile, the highest 1-year performance was that of Generate KiwiSaver's Focused Growth Fund at 25.44 percent and the lowest was OneAnswer KiwiSaver's Conservative Fund, returning just 5.88 percent.
When it comes to fees, the report showed Simplicity had maintained its spot as the provider with the lowest fees among the Growth, Balanced, and Conservative categories. The provider's recently launched High Growth fund was not captured in the report data.
Average KiwiSaver fees varied greatly across different categories. The report showed High Growth funds had the highest average fees at 1.12 percent. Conservative funds meanwhile had the lowest at 0.61 percent. The report did not include Cash or Single-Sector funds
National Capital noted while a growing number of providers have been phasing out fixed monthly membership fees, 12 of the 24 KiwiSaver providers researched still mentioned charging membership fees in their Product Disclosure Statements.
The report also looked into the funds that scored the highest when it came to ethical investments. It found Booster Kiwisaver's Socially Responsible funds scored the highest for Ethical Investing across High Growth, Growth and Balanced funds.
Meanwhile, Simplicity's Conservative Fund scored the highest for Ethical Investing in the Conservative category, with a rating of 8.23/10.
National Capital noted overall, managers maintained how they invest ethically with an unchanged average score of 6.11 from the last quarter. A score of 6.11 indicates having 'some exclusions', so overall, managers seem to be paying attention to Ethical Investing.
Besides funds from Booster, other providers with multiple funds that scored highly include Fisher Funds TWO, Fisher Funds KiwiSaver Plan, Nikko AM, Pathfinder, MAS and Simplicity.
Superlife's passive funds varied widely in the report's ethical ratings, with the Ethica fund securing the second rank in the Balanced category with a rating of 8.71/10.
But in contrast, their High Growth, Growth, and Balanced funds received low ratings of 2.15, 2.44, and 1.97, respectively.
