Last year the New Zealand funds management industry apparently experienced the financial equivalent of a religious conversion, switching en masse to the ‘socially responsible investment’ (SRI) persuasion.

In less than 12 months, according to the Responsible Investment Association of Australasia (RIAA), the amount of NZ funds devoted to SRI jumped from $1.6 billion to about $43 billion – an increase of almost 2,700 per cent.

Simon O’Connor, RIAA chief, said the NZ survey result was “one of the most significant global changes to happen to the [SRI] sector in 2016”.

“We have never […]

Each month we’d like to talk you through some of the key features of the InvestNow service, and the details behind the pages in the secure website.

This month it’s the My Documents page.

As the name suggests, this page contains the full range of documents available for your InvestNow account.

The documents are filed under three headings:

• Portfolio reports – reports specific to your portfolio
• Fund documents – documents relating to the funds offered by InvestNow
• Contracts – the executed client agreement for the InvestNow service

All of the reports in your My […]

As at the end of May this year Kiwis had more than $215 billion sitting around in bank deposits, according to Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) statistics.

That huge wad of cash – split between about $137 billion in term deposits and the remainder ‘on call’ – represents New Zealander’s single largest financial asset. Interest-bearing bank deposits, in fact, dwarf both the $40 billion plus KiwiSaver (which itself has about 10 per cent invested in cash) and the roughly $35 billion […]

As the range of funds on InvestNow continues to grow, we are conscious of making it easier for you to find the funds you are wanting to invest in.

We’ve added some new filters to the Our range of funds page:

• Fund Manager (the name of the Fund Manager)
• Sector (by type of fund)
• Fee Estimates (0-1%, 1-2% or 2-3%)
• Fund Type – Portfolio Investment Entity (PIE) vs. Australian Unit Trust (AUT)

Once you have found the fund you are interested in, you can either download the PDS or link through […]

Each month we’d like to talk you through some of the key features of the InvestNow service, and the details behind the pages in the secure website.

This month it’s the Holdings Page.

As you’d gather from it’s name, the Holdings Page provides you with the detail behind your portfolio.  Aside from the current value of your portfolio, which is based upon the most up-to-date unit prices available, it provides you with the following:

Different ways to view your portfolio

Here you can select between:

• Type of Assets – Cash vs Managed Funds;
• Top […]
  

thesmartandlazy.com

ETF and Index Fund are simple, low-cost and diversified investment option with a positive result in the long term. It plays an important part in my plan to achieve financial freedom by only do a few smart things and nothing much else. To put my money where my mouth is, over 90% of my investment are in ETF and Index Fund. I believe everyone should have at least some investment in those products. SmartShares, SuperLife, Simplicity, and

Simplicity contacted us today, and told us that they were stopping InvestNow’s clients from being able to invest in their funds through InvestNow.

Obviously, we are deeply disappointed with Simplicity’s decision, given the clear alignment between our goal to provide investors with the freedom to make choices that best suit their investment goals – this includes removing barriers such as high minimum investment amounts and all transaction and administration fees.

Our customers were able to benefit from being able to invest as little as $250 (whereas their minimum is $10,000) and without […]

Our Roadmap

We have a very healthy list of functionality enhancements lined up for the InvestNow service, but we thought we’d focus on a couple that we are receiving the most requests for:

Regular Investment Plans

Using a combination of direct debits, if needed, and set instructions for purchases of funds, you will be able to set up the automatic purchases of funds for your portfolio.  Once you know which fund(s) you want to purchase, this is a great way to build your portfolio in the most automated manner.

Switching

Leveraging the ease with which you […]