KiwiSavers to find out how much they're expected to end up with

Kiwis will soon be told how much money they'll retire with based on their current KiwiSaver investment rate.

Since its inception in 2007, the best KiwiSaver growth funds have averaged around 9 percent a year - including the impact of the global financial crisis that hit soon afterwards. 

And for a third of Kiwi adults, KiwiSaver is their only investment. According to the latest  Financial Markets Authority (FMA) survey, they have less confidence in the market than those with their money elsewhere, such as term deposits, property and shares.

"Over the past few years, the FMA has worked with KiwiSaver providers to include more information on fees in KiwiSaver statements, and next year the industry will begin including a forecast retirement balance for every KiwiSaver member," says FMA chief executive Rob Everett.

He hopes this will encourage KiwiSaver members to take a greater interest in how their money is growing.

The FMA's survey found while Kiwis overall have growing confidence in the financial markets, there's a big gap between casual investors and the pros.

Sixty-five percent of investors have confidence they'll get returns in the current market. While it's softened in the past two years, the trend remains upwards, having risen from 58 percent in 2013.

"While investor confidence has been stable over the past two years, it's encouraging to see that it has steadily improved since we first started the survey six years ago," said Everett.

A big reason for that is KiwiSaver, according to Milford Asset Management's Frances Sweetman.

"Because a lot of us are now invested in KiwiSaver, we're all a little bit more involved in the financial markets," she told The AM Show on Thursday.

"People do talk about having confidence in the cycle, the fact they have been delivered good returns."

With interest rates so low, you might think term deposits would be going out of style - but they're not. 

"We have $180 billion invested in term deposits. That's just New Zealand households, not even businesses," said Sweetman. 

"Term deposits now deliver you a rate of about 3 percent, whereas the New Zealand sharemarket has done 22 percent just this year... it has been a very good year. You wouldn't expect to deliver that every year, but it's done 11 percent on average over the last 15 years, and that includes the global financial crisis."

It's often said Kiwis shy away from the markets in favour of property, but the FMA's survey found 17 percent of Kiwis own shares, while only 14 percent have investments in residential property. 

Newshub.