KEY POINTS:
Wondering how to get into KiwiSaver? A good place to start could be your bank - but perhaps not just yet. A survey of the five main banks found that only one, Westpac, has so far got its KiwiSaver prospectus into its branches.
The others are all still
working on prospectuses and asking customers to wait at least a couple of weeks.
All are having to rewrite information packs in the wake of the dramatic changes to the scheme announced in Thursday's Budget, just 45 days before contributions are due to start on July 1. Westpac's head of wealth management, Tracey Berry, said the prospectus for the bank's KiwiSaver offering came out two weeks ago and still stood despite the Budget.
Employers could be signed up now to make the Westpac scheme their "preferred provider" for employees, but employees themselves could not sign up until July 1. Non-employees could apply now.
"If you are self-employed, or not employed, you can join KiwiSaver directly by contacting a KiwiSaver provider, hopefully us," she said.
"There's a variety of people in the branches that have been trained and we have specialists through all the branches and in the business base."
She said self-employed and non-employed people could save either 4 per cent or 8 per cent of their incomes through KiwiSaver and would get the same $1000 Government "kick-start" grant and the matching 4 per cent state subsidy of up to $20 a week.
Clearly, sole traders and the non-employed would not have access to the employer contribution, which rises gradually to 4 per cent by 2011.
But Mrs Berry said self-employed people could get the employer contribution too, and the Government subsidy on that of a further 4 per cent up to $20 a week, if they set themselves up as a company and paid themselves as employees.
The Bank of New Zealand's director of private banking, David Cairns, said investment managers at its branches were available to advise people about KiwiSaver, but the bank was still waiting for investment statements from the two KiwiSaver schemes the bank had relationships with from Axa and AMP.
ASB spokeswoman Debby Bell said her bank would send information packs about its KiwiSaver scheme to branches and the bank's 600,000 customers in two weeks.
ANZ and National Bank spokeswoman Virginia Stracey-Clitherow said her two banks would offer separate KiwiSaver options through branches from early June.
And Kiwibank spokesman Bruce Thompson said his bank would have full information on its KiwiSaver scheme, in a link with Mercer New Zealand, soon.
"We will be able to direct our customers and people who come in in the right direction, but we are not able to do so yet," he said.
He said Kiwibank was fielding calls from some people who thought it was the organisation behind KiwiSaver.
It is not. The Government has designed the scheme but the 11 KiwiSaver schemes registered so far are all being offered by private-sector financial companies. The scheme is not Government-guaranteed.
