Aaron Gilbert, a senior lecturer in AUT’s business school, and a fellow at the Auckland Centre for Financial Research, said there was a big gap.

“If you’re extremely wealthy or making a complete hash of it, there’s plenty of advice. But if you’re sitting with less than a couple of hundred thousand to invest, getting good investment advice is extremely difficult.”

He said banks would provide some advice. “But they have a vested interest in the advice they give. Outside that, financial advisers are not terribly interested in people who are not bringing a reasonable amount to the table.”

He said it was a tricky issue to deal with.

The Retirement Commission has identified the use of financial advisers as something that it wants to increase. In its National Strategy for Financial Literacy, it says a major challenge will be that New Zealanders are not accustomed to paying for financial advice. It says consumer trust in financial advisers needs to improve.

Its goal is for 50% more people to be using qualified financial advisers in 2025. It says only about 15% use an adviser at present.

Gilbert said that was a good aim. “A lot of people could definitely use these sorts of services for broadening how they deal with financial matters. But the real challenge is to increase it by 50% without bringing in the perverse incentives we’ve had in the past.”

He said New Zealanders were hesitant to pay for advice. “How do you get people to value it enough to pay? Kiwis are very reluctant to pay for advice. Until they’re more willing to value independent advice I’m not sure how advisers can cater for more of that market.”

If clients were not going to pay, advisers would have to recoup their costs elsewhere. “One problem that came up with the collapse of finance companies was the use of kickbacks and commissions. If financial advisers can’t charge the clients, they have to pay for their services somehow.”