He said things like fuel costs, groceries, rates and insurance premiums \u201cdon\u2019t have a lot of wiggle room\u201d for people.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the things that people just have to pay [for], if they\u2019re going to get by, have risen a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jurkovich said it was \u201cworrying\u201d people had to take on debt for groceries or petrol.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a lot of people are in a situation where that might be not a great option but their only option.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the more places that BNPL is available, the more it becomes an option for people to use.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you get into a position where you\u2019re not able to meet the hooks and hurdles\u2026 you can get yourself into trouble and it can be a bit of an invisible debt.<\/p>\n
\u201cQuite quickly that becomes a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom Hartmann, personal finance lead at Sorted, said while BNPL makes sense for some purchases, it can spiral out of control with everyday essentials.<\/p>\n
\u201c[When] people are using it for like petrol or food, what ends up happening is that it\u2019s not paid off and you need more petrol or you need more food,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really seeing a lot of difficulty coming up, it\u2019s obviously why people would be reaching for BNPL.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hartmann said they\u2019ve seen examples of people\u2019s entire paycheque going on BNPL services to repay items they\u2019ve bought.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople don\u2019t realise that they\u2019re borrowing, they just think this is a different way to pay for things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those under 30 were more likely to take on some form of debt to cover living cost increases (61%), compared with Kiwis aged 30-44 (55%), 45-59 (35%) and 60+ (15%), the research found.<\/p>\n
$500 million lost in savings<\/p>\n
The Kiwibank report also found just over half of New Zealanders (54%) are aware of bonus savings account conditions, leaving many missing out on extra money.<\/p>\n
Bonus savings accounts usually promote interest rates made up of a low base rate (often 0.05%) plus a conditional \u201cbonus\u201d rate around incentives such as making no withdrawals for a month or depositing a certain amount each month.<\/p>\n
Jurkovich said he was \u201cstaggered\u201d by the number of Kiwis with a savings account who don\u2019t understand how the terms and conditions work.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026 and why they don\u2019t get the benefit that they thought they were going to get,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think its half a billion dollars a year that New Zealanders miss out because life happens and they have to access that money.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Jurkovich says this shouldn\u2019t be the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe product should be way easier and way simpler to be realising that from time to time while people are saving, they have to dip into their savings.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd they should still be getting the rate on the money that\u2019s in there, rather than losing out because life happened to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kiwibank chief executive Steve Jurkovich.<\/p>\n
Savings challenges<\/p>\n
According to the report, saving remains challenging for many Kiwis.<\/p>\n
But some groups face greater pressure than others; M\u0101ori, Pasifika, renters and women are more likely to say they struggle to save.<\/p>\n
Of those experiencing saving challenges (61%), 74% cited cost of living as their biggest barrier to saving \u2013 up from 69% last year.<\/p>\n
Almost a third (28%) of people said they didn\u2019t have enough in their account to cover an unexpected $500 bill without borrowing, selling something or putting it on a credit card.<\/p>\n
That was little changed from last year (29%).<\/p>\n
Sorted\u2019s Hartmann said having emergency savings was the foundation of being financially stable.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just about having a static emergency fund but actually each time you have to use it that you\u2019re building back stronger,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe antidote to a lot of the difficulties that people are getting themselves into with BNPL services is an emergency fund.\u201d<\/p>\n
But despite cost-of-living challenges, budgeting and saving habits were holding steady over the three years of the survey, according to Kiwibank\u2019s report.<\/p>\n
Those who said they regularly saved money increased from 41% in 2024 to 44% in 2026.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, 59% of people said they had a defined monthly budget in place.<\/p>\n
More than a third (39%) had also made deliberate changes to improve savings, such as reducing discretionary spending (28%), changing grocery shopping habits (14%) and cancelling subscriptions (10%).<\/p>\n
\u201cThree years of research shows that despite ongoing financial pressures, Kiwis continue to budget, save and find ways to make progress, from cutting spending to trying new tools,\u201d Jurkovich said.<\/p>\n
Cameron Smith is an Auckland-based business reporter. He joined the Herald in 2015 and has covered business and sports. He reports on topics such as retail, small business, the workplace and macroeconomics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He said things like fuel costs, groceries, rates and insurance premiums \u201cdon\u2019t have a lot of wiggle room\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114860,3225,138,4187,802,16123,3105,3468,5399,219,1342,305,78,21325,95012,807,700,4188,6501,3234,111,139,69,1118,90,3111,4517,4578,13672,199,19554,8229,61,1237,102],"class_list":["post-539121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-500m","tag-according","tag-business","tag-cost","tag-costs","tag-cover","tag-data","tag-deal","tag-debt","tag-economy","tag-five","tag-have","tag-in","tag-increases","tag-kiwibank","tag-kiwis","tag-latest","tag-living","tag-missing","tag-months","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-on","tag-out","tag-past","tag-savings","tag-state","tag-take","tag-taken","tag-they","tag-to","tag-two","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}