About 100 advisers had volunteered to provide up to an hour of pro bono advice last week.

Enquiries to a central hotline were directed to advisers based on their areas of expertise as well as their geographic location; due to regulatory constraints they could only offer class advice.

However, the lack of public response meant many of the advisers didn’t end up fielding any inquiries at all.

The IFA’s initiative was one of more than 100 money-related events took place as part of the Commission for Financial Literacy and Retirement Income’s inaugural Money Week.

The goal of the week was to improve the financial literacy of New Zealanders and financial advice is an important part of that, according to Neville Caird, who was in charge of the IFA’s pro bono programme. 

“Normally people talk to advisers when they are in trouble; if you get to them before that you can actually develop a strategy.”

He said he was surprised at the low turnout and there would be enquiries made as to how to boost that number for next year’s event.

“I’m just a little bit disappointed because of the sheer numbers,” he said.  “I thought there would have been 30 calls not just from Dunedin, where I live, but from Mosgiel. I was expecting hundreds of calls.

“However, with those advisers that were involved their general view was they were very happy with how those discussions went.”

Retirement Commissioner Diana Crossan said she couldn’t make any definitive comments on Money Week before a full debriefing, which is being held today.

However, she said there may have been issues around the promotion of individual events, which was to be done by the groups running each event.

“Some of the groups will be disappointed with what happened because they didn’t realise just how much they needed to promote them.”