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1 month ago | 
interest.co.nz | Ella Somers |Gareth Vaughan |David Hargreaves
IAG New Zealand received over 3,500 claims from natural hazard events that impacted NZ over spring and summer, which is less than half the amount in natural hazard claims that the country’s biggest general insurer received a year earlier. This is according to new findings from IAG NZ’s latest biannual Wild Weather Tracker, which reports on the weather-related claims the insurer has received every six months.
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2 months ago | 
interest.co.nz | Ella Somers |Gareth Vaughan |David Hargreaves
Six financial technology (fintech) companies have been picked by the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) to test their products, services and business models in the FMA’s new regulatory sandbox to be piloted this year. The FMA said it had received 24 applications to be part of the sandbox. The six successful fintechs are Tandym Limited, Invest in Farming Co-op, IndigiShare, Homeshare, Emerge and ECDD Holdings Limited which is part of the exchange service Easy Crypto.
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2 months ago | 
interest.co.nz | Ella Somers |Gareth Vaughan |David Hargreaves
More than half of New Zealanders are concerned about money on a weekly basis, according to the Financial Services Council (FSC). The FSC has released its annual Financial Resilience Index, an annual report of New Zealanders' financial confidence and wellbeing. The FSC has been tracking and releasing annual reports on financial confidence in NZ from 2020.
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2 months ago | 
interest.co.nz | Ella Somers |Gareth Vaughan |David Hargreaves
Personal Finance / news KiwiSaver early withdrawals reached record monthly high in March as more savers tap funds for first homes and financial hardship 29th Apr 25, 9:25am by Early KiwiSaver withdrawals topped $225 million during March, reaching a new monthly record high. According to Inland Revenue (IRD), which tracks monthly KiwiSaver statistics, 9,170 KiwiSaver members withdrew a total of $225,483,431 during March. This was made up of 4,190 people withdrawing $181.1 million for home...
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2 months ago | 
interest.co.nz | Ella Somers |Gareth Vaughan |David Hargreaves
The Insurance Council of New Zealand (ICNZ) says in the past two years, one in five New Zealanders have switched insurance providers. This is according to a new survey commissioned by the NZ insurance industry body, which found only 20% of survey respondents had switched insurance providers in the last two years. The ICNZ did not specify in its survey release when the survey took place or how many people undertook the survey but interest.co.nz has asked.
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2 months ago | 
interest.co.nz | Ella Somers |Gareth Vaughan |David Hargreaves
Investment firm Forsyth Barr will be keeping a watchful eye on Tower Insurance’s slower-than-expected premium growth even though the general insurer has raised its 2025 full-year net profit guidance for the second time so far this year. Tower on Tuesday revised its full-year underlying net profit after tax (NPAT) up to a range of between $70 million and $80 million, from the previous range of between $60 million and $70 million.
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2 months ago | 
interest.co.nz | Ella Somers |Gareth Vaughan |David Hargreaves
Despite Heartland Group Holdings announcing arrears improvements in its motor finance portfolio, analysts at investment services firm Forsyth Barr say Heartland Bank is “not out of the woods yet”. In a research report published on Thursday, Andrew Harvey-Green and Benjamin Crozier have retained a neutral rating for Heartland Group Holdings, despite a “solid” third quarter update out of the bank earlier this week.
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2 months ago | 
interest.co.nz | Ella Somers |Gareth Vaughan |David Hargreaves
Employment marketplace SEEK says job ad volumes remained flat in March but ad volumes have risen for the first time quarter-on-quarter in over two years. In its latest NZ employment report released on Thursday, SEEK says that the quarterly rise of 2%, the first quarter-on-quarter increase since August 2022, indicated a stabilisation of the job ad market.
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2 months ago | 
interest.co.nz | Ella Somers |Gareth Vaughan |David Hargreaves
Food prices rose 0.5% in March, according to the latest Statistics New Zealand Selected Price Indexes (SPI), driven by higher prices for grocery food and non-alcoholic beverages. The March SPI out of Stats NZ shows food prices have risen 3.5% in the 12 months to March 2025 and 0.5% compared to a month earlier. Stats NZ’s SPI features goods comprising about 45% of the quarterly Consumers Price Index (CPI), the official measure of inflation tracked by the Reserve Bank.
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2 months ago | 
interest.co.nz | Ella Somers |Gareth Vaughan |David Hargreaves
Personal Finance / news What is and and isn’t covered under the deposit insurance scheme launching in July 11th Apr 25, 11:10am by New Zealand's long awaited Depositor Compensation Scheme (DCS) launches in July. So just what will, and what won't be, covered by the DCS? The basic deal with the DCS is it will provide protection of up to $100,000 per eligible depositor, per licensed bank, building society, credit union and deposit taking finance company, in the event of deposit taker failure....
