Dunedin

Sovereign has appointed David Haak as its chief distribution officer and he is responsible for the delivery of insurance products and services to financial advisers, ASB bank and corporate partners throughout New Zealand.

A marked shift to floating and short-term rate mortgages by borrowers last year was flagged in KPMG's 2009 Financial Institutions Performance Survey as the central bank gets closer to hiking rates.

National Australia Bank (NAB) has appointed Jennifer Lauber Patterson as head of environmental treasury solutions within its Wholesale Banking division.

The Investment Savings & Insurance Association of New Zealand (ISI) has appointed Stephen Leslie to the newly created role of communications manager.

Wellington

Gordon Watson, the founder of Fidelity Life, passed away peacefully yesterday after a long illness.

Hamilton

Investors looking for a silver lining in the latest update on the Bridgecorp receivership will be disappointed with no sign of any improvement in the figures.

Financial Services Complaints Limited (FSCL) is the first dispute resolution scheme to be approved under the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act 2008.

If monetary policy tightening starts in June as BNZ still expects, then for those planning to have a mortgage exposure for three years there is a forecast benefit near 0.5% for fixing three years rather than floating says BNZ economist Tony Alexander.