It beat AMP Capital Investors and Milford Asset Management for the Fund Manager of the Year prize, while Milford and Westpac were the other finalists in the KiwiSaver category.

Fisher Funds took home the prize for domestic equities, beating AMP and Milford, while Brook Walter Scott won the international equities category where OnePath and Elevation Capital were also nominated.

Tower BondPlus won the fixed interest category ahead of AMP and OnePath.

ANZ managing director, wealth John Body said that "performance matters" and this requires having good people and strong investment processes.

"We define performance as consistency - our aspiration is not to be number one in January and number 15 in September."

Body said one aspect OnePath has been focusing on is disclosure and making sure information is provided in a way that investors can easily understand.

"One of the things we're passionate about is let's make this really easy for our customers to understand.  It should be like the Apple model where everything is so intuitive to use - why can't fund managers make things that easy?"

Speaking about the KiwiSaver award, Body said KiwiSaver has given OnePath a clearer customer focus.

"If you think about the traditional model of selling products through advisers and third parties, the adviser was your customer to an extent.

"It has really sharpened our focus on the customer service aspect of our business.  The responsibility of managing the retirement savings for 500,000 New Zealanders is something you can never take lightly."

Morningstar head of research Chris Douglas said the awards are judged on a combination of quantitative analysis of performance over one, three and five years on a risk-adjusted basis, overlaid with Morningstar's own view of how well managers have done in terms of people and processes.

"We look to reward managers who haven't just done well last year - we don't want to acknowledge those who are just a flash in the pan and blow themselves up."

Douglas said entrants in the KiwiSaver category are also judged on transparency, disclosure and investor experience.