The KiwiSaver Fund Comparison tool has received its first major update since launch, introducing highly requested improvements to how key analysis data is presented. These changes deliver greater accuracy and consistency, ensuring clearer insights for both advisers and clients.
What's changed
Emphasising 10-year returns, with 5y and 1y alongside
KiwiSaver is designed as a long-term investment product, but our Comparison tool previously showed only emphasised 5-year returns. That made it harder to set client expectations against the actual investment horizon and risked framing long-term decisions on short-term results.
The tool now surfaces three return windows — 10y, 5y, and 1y — with 10-year returns emphasised as the primary lens for fund comparison. Shorter windows remain available for context, but the default view reflects the product's long-term purpose.
Categorised & Consistent Fees data
Previously, fees were presented as lumped %-point data, calculated against a fixed $10,000 balance assumption. With the average KiwiSaver balance sitting around $36,000 — and adviser-focused providers often higher — that assumption overstated the fee percentage clients were actually paying.
Fees are now presented categorically to highlight their different components as Base Fund fees, Provider Membership fees (and your Advice fees), reflecting a more accurate fee breakdown.
We’ve also enabled you to import your advice fees directly into the SOA breakdown, so there are no surprises for clients and no additional admin for you to add these in. This update is reflected in the KiwiSaver Settings>Provider Research menu
Statement Of Advice (SOA) flow-through
This new expanded data in the Comparison tool also populates into the SOA automatically through our new improved design. You’ll see changes to two sections in this release:
My Provider Recommendation — the recommended provider and fund selection carries through from the Comparison tool
Market Comparisons — the comparison data you reviewed with the client populates into the SOA alongside your recommendation
Where to Find it
Open any KiwiSaver Advice opportunity, head to the KiwiSaver Comparison tool, and the updates are live.
Why this matters for your advice process
This update directly supports Stage 3 of the six-step advice process — analysis. Ten-year returns and real-balance fees give you defensible numbers to base recommendations on, and the SOA flow-through into Your Recommendation and Market Comparisons reduces the rework between analysis and advice document.
Additional Notes
Returns data continues to be sourced from provider disclosures and updated on the same cadence as before.
Fee figures update dynamically based on the client's balance on their profile — if the balance changes, the fee view recalculates.
SOA flow-through covers the Your Recommendation and Market Comparisons sections. Other sections of the SOA still need to be completed as usual.
Feel free to take a look at these updated articles we’ve put together—they should help clarify things.🎉