ckc:

gzt:

ckc: Well, that depends on a scheme being implemented because of a global financial crisis. That doesn't, say, cover for a badly or fraudulently run business that just goes broke overnight because the scheme doesn't exist.

That is correct. Can you make the case why it should be different?

Because you're not given any other choice about where to keep your money, save buying gold and burying it in the garden. Because you have no choice about being in Kiwisaver after you've signed up, and you have no choice but to put your Kiwisaver in a state approved scheme.

Customers don't know if a bank is bad or good behind the scenes. They're not transparent and they're poorly regulated, like I said up there.

If the state gives you no choice and no alternative places to put your money, if the state fosters that system and encourages its growth and independence, and if you have no choice about offshoring your Kiwisaver to a country where your deposit is guaranteed, then the state has to front up and owe savers a duty of care other than, "Damn, you made a bad decision banking with them, bro!"

But most importantly, we're the anomaly. We're just about the only country that doesn't protect people's savings, and that's for some weird, nebulous reason about 'the market'. Which is strange, because the US has the FDIC and they're all about the market. Yet they protect people's savings.

I wonder why we're special. Or is it just that underwriting the savings of people who often have no choice about it being taken from them might affect that balance sheet and put them on the wrong side of the wafer thin surplus they're chasing.