Back 02 April 2026

‘5 mins with the FMA’ Podcast #19 Improving access to financial advice for New Zealanders

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Share to facebook Share to LinkedIn Share to X Share by Email Print this page Back to top Financial advice plays an important role in helping New Zealanders make informed decisions about their financial wellbeing. But many people still don’t access advice or aren’t sure where to start.

In our recent episode of 5 mins with the FMA, Head of Financial Advice Romil Ghelani talks about what the FMA has heard from New Zealanders and the financial advice sector about access to advice, and why this issue matters.

The discussion draws on the findings of the FMA’s Access to Financial Advice Review, which looked at both consumers’ experiences and industry perspectives.

Key Take aways:

1. Only 28% of New Zealanders accessed a financial adviser in the past 12 months.
2. A key theme was the strong focus on conduct and compliance — something the FMA sees as positive — but which can sometimes lead to cautious or rigid approaches that make it harder to introduce new advice journeys for underserved consumers.
3. Banks also play a significant role in how New Zealanders seek guidance. The FMA will continue engaging with industry, consumer groups and other stakeholders to explore how advice can be delivered in new and accessible ways within the current regulatory framework.

Read the Access to financial advice in New Zealand reports

• Expand all ## Transcript

Rachael Joel

Kia ora koutou and welcome to Five Minutes with the FMA. I'm Rachel Joel and today we're talking about something central to the financial well-being of New Zealanders, access to financial advice. The FMA has just released the findings of its review into how people are accessing advice and where the barriers and opportunities are for the sector. With me is Romil Ghelani, Head of Financial Advice. Romil, great to have you here. Can we start by talking about how the review came about and who you talk to?

Romil Ghelani

Sure. So the FMA is the principal conduct regulator for financial advice in New Zealand. And so we do the regular monitoring and supervision of licensed financial advice providers. We'd heard about challenges to consumers accessing financial advice through our business as usual work and decided that we want to do a dedicated review into accessibility challenges for New Zealanders. So we talked to consumers. We sampled a representative sample of New Zealanders, so 1000 consumers commissioned through Ipsos. And we also conducted workshops, workshops with licensed advisors, with the banks, with the insurers, with education providers who give the education services to financial advisors, consultancy firms and law firms as well.

Rachael Joel

Okay, so let's start with the consumers. What did they tell you?

Romil Ghelani

Sure. So the big insight that we garnered is that only 28% of New Zealanders accessed a financial advisor in the past 12 months. We used a financial advisor in the past 12 months. And financial advisor is quite a broad term. So if you break that down, that could mean investment advisor, insurance advisor, mortgage advisor, or whatever the consumer perceives a financial advisor is. And so we think that number is quite low and could be a lot higher. We also learned of certain consumer demographics that are not accessing financial advice, so those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and Maori and Pacifica as well. And we saw a big awareness gap. in terms of what financial advice is and what it isn't when it comes to regulated financial advice. How to get financial advice and what are some of the costs that go into receiving financial advice. We saw perceived affordability barriers as well.

Rachael Joel

And so what did you hear from the advice sector?

Romil Ghelani

Sure, so we also engaged the advice sector. We conducted over 80 interviews across the sector, so a lot of in-depth field work. And what we learned is that financial advisors take conduct and compliance very seriously, which is great to hear as a regulator. So much so, though, that it can sometimes result in very rigid approaches to compliance, where there is a bit of inertia to introduce new financial advice journeys, to tap into consumers that are currently underserved and not accessing financial advice. So that was probably the key thing that we uncovered in terms of the role of regulation. But we also uncovered that banks, which is a common... institution that New Zealanders go to get information and guidance for their financial well-being aren't making advice as accessible and available as they should. So that's another key insight that came from our discussions.

Rachael Joel

Okay, one thing that I saw in the reports is the use of technology. Tell me a bit more about that.

Romil Ghelani

Yeah, so innovation was a key topic that we covered in most of our interviews. So what we're learning with innovation in the financial advice industry is there's two broad buckets that we uncovered. Innovation, including AI, is being used to be more efficient. So those are tools within the business to help with things like record-keeping. And also innovation in the second bucket is around using AI and tools to help give actual regulated financial advice. We saw a lot of activity occurring in that first bucket, but less so in that second bucket. And we think there's an opportunity for more innovation to occur in the sector with the FMA guiding the industry in the way forward.

Rachael Joel

Okay. And one of the gaps identified in the review is the accumulation, you know, how people use their savings once they retire. What did you learn in that area?

Romil Ghelani

Sure. So this was one of the most recurring themes that we uncovered through our conversations, which is that There's a lot of financial advice that is available around what KiwiSaver fund you should be in, but less so about what life looks like after 65. So how do you decumulate your retirement savings? So what we found is that there isn't any standardized way of giving advice in that space, but we think that's a really important gap that needs to be plugged because the population of those greater than 65 is only going to increase and Kiwi QCV balances are growing as per our own QCV annual report that shows the importance of that as your retirement vehicle for the future.

Rachael Joel

So there's a real opportunity there for advisors and providers to support better retirement outcomes.

Romil Ghelani

Absolutely. And I think what we want to do when we engage with the industry after we publish our reports is to really understand what new advice journeys can be introduced within the current regulatory regime for advice.

Rachael Joel

So where to from here?

Romil Ghelani

From here. So the reports are not the final word. That's really important for a topic like financial advice accessibility. It is a challenge that the industry, the consumer advocacy groups, and the regulator all need to work together to overcome and to address. And so what we want to do is hold a series of round tables and meetings and discussions and seminars with the various parts of the financial advice sector to discover new ways in which advice can be given and to give some compliance certainty about what that could look like.

Rachael Joel

Fantastic. Thanks so much, Romil. Both reports, the consumer insights and the sector findings are available on the FMA website at www.fma.govt.nz.