People are continuing to dip into their KiwiSaver accounts - with financial hardship behind just over half of February's early withdrawals.
In February, KiwiSaver members made 8640 early withdrawals totalling $218,662,632. Of those, 4750 were for financial hardship and 3900 were for first home purchases.
This follows January’s KiwiSaver figures, showing 7570 early withdrawals totalling $173,499,920.
People usually withdraw money from their KiwiSaver when they reach 65, which is retirement age, but you can also apply for early withdrawals to buy your first house or because of financial hardship.
The 4750 February withdrawals for financial hardship totalled $41,244,763, while the withdrawals for first homes reached $177,417,869.
February’s total early withdrawal figure is lower than the record set in November, when the value withdrawn hit a new monthly high of $255,323,171.
For the number of KiwiSaver fund withdrawals, IRD rounds up to the nearest 10.
In February, there were 81,778 savings suspensions, which is when people temporarily stop their contributions. Of those, 1106 stopped their contributions due to financial hardship.
As of February, 824,466 members had their accounts closed or chose to opt out of KiwiSaver. Of this, 635,591 members had closed their accounts while 188,875 chose to opt out.
Members usually have their accounts closed because of death, permanently leaving the country, retirement, serious illness or other reasons.
When it came to KiwiSaver schemes, 642,731 people were in default allocated schemes, 207,847 were in employer nominated schemes and 2,583,163 had actively chosen their schemes in February.
At 759,751 the 35 to 44 age demographic had the largest number of KiwiSaver members. The 25 to 34 age category follows with 734,727 members.
During February, 6957 people became active or provisional (you have eight weeks before you can choose to opt out) KiwiSaver members. There are a total of 3,443,629 active or provisional KiwiSaver members, IRD data shows.
1 Comments
Nah! The economic recovery is well and truly underway and the economy is really started to hum, look we had 0.2% growth starting 6 months ago, and the RBNZ predicted inflation at 2% for. 2026 and 2.5% to 3.5% economic growth. We have got to get used to commentators and vested interest bank economists ignoring the data which paints the true picture, play the punters for gullible mugs and accentuate and spin any positives, at the same time eliminate the truth. That narrative does suit the agenda.
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