About

The legal team of Kiwibank’s Wealth division advises internal clients at Kiwibank and sister companies at Kiwi Wealth by working across four offices in Australia. It is made up of five lawyers and headed by Larissa Vaughan, head of legal wealth and lead digital lawyer. In recent years, the team has transitioned from focusing on business as usual legal activities to focus on more strategic work whilst also becoming the lead digital legal advisers across both Kiwibank and Kiwi Wealth. Taking on this role and demonstrating an understanding of the business by focusing on the customer, the team has contributed heavily in the digital arena working by delivering new online processes and products whilst progressing with related law changes. Vaughan says that ‘a notable example of our work in this area is the development of the Kiwi Wealth KiwiSaver Future You tool. This online tool provides financial information and advice to customers and helps them make good decisions for retirement savings based on their risk profile and goals and applying rule based algorithms. It is novel for tool of this type in New Zealand due to regulatory constraints. We worked closely with the product managers, compliance, coders and designers agreeing on the legal parameters, content wording and flow for the tool’. The team’s regulatory work also deserves high praise as it has driven change regarding the status of “robo advice” in New Zealand: they sought exemption to the domestic law that prohibits online financial advice which led to the regulator commencing a public consultation on this issue and proposing a class exemption, expecting the matter to be finalised by the end of the year. The legal team is also raising awareness in the FinTech regulatory environment by instigating the establishment of a FinTech Regulatory round table as a forum where industry issues can be tabled and constructively discussed between industry players and regulators. Other notable members of the team include senior legal counsel Rachel Lethbridge, who was a key player in the development of the Future You tool, and whose standout skills include her ‘adaptive ways of working and pragmatism, using her legal expertise to carefully push the boundaries to allow the business to innovate in areas of regulatory constraint’. Other key members are legal adviser Kris Milne who ‘has played a key shaping role within the team and business looking after the ongoing and complex legal needs of the GMI Super Scheme and GMI Private Portfolio Service’ and senior legal counsel Prue Tyler who ‘has helped the business with new digital and managed fund product development, advising on anti-money laundering and digital financial advisor issues, amongst other things’. The team has also been instrumental in successfully transitioning the Kiwi Wealth business to the new Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013, which took full effect in late 2016.