The Government has canned the $1000 KiwiSaver kickstart programme.
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Fisher Funds says it has made some changes to the team that manages its hardship applications, with KiwiSaver managers under pressure as withdrawal applications spiked.
Inland Revenue data showed there were 58,460 withdrawals for hardship reasons in 2025, 10,000 more than were made for a first home.
In total, $514.8 million was withdrawn from KiwiSaver because of hardship and $2.1 billion for a first home.
Some applicants faced delays as providers struggled to keep up with the volume.
Fisher Funds said some changes were made last year to its team, for the eight staff based in Hawke’s Bay.
“We put a change proposal to them, inviting them to relocate to Auckland/or Wellington and unfortunately none of them took up the offer.
“All roles were replaced with people in either Auckland or Wellington.”
A spokesperson said Fisher Funds was not immune to the overall increase in applications and, anticipating that Christmas would be a time of additional pressure on household budgets, extra staff were added from November through January.
Milford Asset Management has a partnership with DebtFix, to help manage the hardship application process. It, too, has seen a significant increase in applications.
A spokesperson for Westpac said it had added staff to its team, to handle first-home withdrawals as well as hardship applications.
“We’ve improved some of our internal processes to make it faster and more efficient for customers.”
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