Financial advice and asset allocation of individual investors

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to explore the differences in KiwiSaver portfolio composition between investors who receive financial advice and those who do not. Design/methodology/approach - – Using proprietary data which contain information of 405,107 individual KiwiSaver accounts, this paper examines who receives advice, compares the asset allocations of advised accounts with non-advised accounts, explores the relation of asset allocation with demographic characteristics and compares differences in returns between advised and non-advised investors. Findings - – Three key findings are presented in this paper. First, female investors, relatively older investors and investors with higher levels of funds under management (invested wealth) are more likely to receive financial advice. Second, advised investors hold more equity assets. Third, differences in performance between advised and non-advised accounts are marginal. Research limitations/implications - – Panel data are not used, which prohibit investigating asset allocation choices overtime. The time series for returns is short, as KiwiSaver has only been operating since 2007. The total portfolio that people own is not known; thus, the values on investment fund information do not represent the total wealth of each person, as other accounts elsewhere may exist. Practical implications - – There are broad implications for the New Zealand capital market, retirement policy, financial advice industry and development of financial literacy programmes. Originality/value - – The paper examines individual investor behaviour on a nationwide sample and explores how receiving financial advice relates to asset allocation.