19 February 2010
Commerce Minister Simon Power yesterday responded to all 60 of the recommendations made by the taskforce in December - 18 months after it was set up to try to breath new life into the market by making it more attractive to investment from individuals and companies.
17 February 2010
A bill that makes some small but important tweaks to new financial regulations passed its first reading in Parliament last night. The Financial Services Providers (Pre-Implementation Adjustments) Bill makes technical amendments to the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act and the Financial Advisers Act.
20 November 2009
A tax bill introduced to Parliament today by Revenue Minister Peter Dunne opens the way for New Zealanders returning home from Australia to bring their retirement savings with them.
The changes are part of the Taxation (Annual Rates, Trans-Tasman Savings Portability, KiwiSaver, and Remedial Matters) Bill.
13 October 2009
Commerce Minister Simon Power has proposed a range of "technical tweaks" around the incoming Qualifying Financial Entity (QFE) regime, in a bid to meet industry concerns.
6 October 2009
Legislation introduced in the Taxation (International Taxation, Life Insurance, and Remedial Matters) Bill has been enacted. The bill, introduced in July 2008, passed its final stages in Parliament last month and received Royal assent today.
22 September 2009
Critics have welcomed a shake-up of the Securities Commission in which three new people will take up commissioner roles on the 11-member board.
4 September 2009
The Securities Commission is investigating complaints of illegal house-to-house marketing of KiwiSaver schemes. Under the Securities Act, house-to-house selling of securities is illegal unless they are life insurance contracts, Building Society or Co-operative securities. The Securities Commission uses the term house-to-house as oppose to door-to-door, as the restriction only refers to residential houses - distributors can go from business to business.
16 July 2009
Australia and New Zealand today signed a memorandum of understanding that paves the way for a new scheme that will allow transfers of retirement saving between certain Australian superannuation funds and New Zealand KiwiSaver funds. The scheme is expected to be in place by mid-2010.
15 July 2009
Giving New Zealanders returning permanently from Australia the ability to bring their compulsory retirement savings back home if they so choose is a positive move, according to the Association of Superannuation Funds of New Zealand (ASFONZ) which promotes workplace savings.
7 July 2009
The Government is proposing to introduce legislation to align resident withholding tax (RWT) rates on interest and portfolio investment entities (PIE) tax rates with recent changes to personal income tax rates and the 30% company tax rate, Revenue Minister Peter Dunne announced today.