Nearly 470,000 people have signed up for KiwiSaver ahead of next month's introduction of employer contributions to the scheme, the Government said today.
Finance Minister Michael Cullen and Revenue Minister Peter Dunne said that as at February 29 there were 469,330 KiwiSaver members.
The February numbers were alsoshowing an important and expected shift away from new members who were actively choosing to join the scheme to those who were being automatically enrolled when they started a new job, the ministers said.
They considered this was important, because automatically enrolled members were much more likely to be new savers drawn from wider income and ethnic groups.
"We were always confident KiwiSaver would be a success but it is fair to say that the overwhelming response to the scheme has come as a welcome surprise," Dr Cullen said.
Mr Dunne said businesses had been working hard on the April 1 introduction of employer contributions.
"All businesses will win out of KiwiSaver if we can build a large pool of domestic capital through the scheme that is available for Kiwi companies to draw from for investment," he said.
