New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority received 1273 complaints and 2923 enquiries in the 11 months to May 31.

One of the main areas of concern is advisers holding clients’ money and operating without the necessary authorisation or registration, according to the regulator’s Investigations and Enforcement Report.

Almost 500 complaints were passed to the authority’s enforcement team.

“The vast majority of these became part of an existing investigation, reinforcing the fact we were already actively engaged in issues of concern raised by our contacts,” the report says.

“However, 2% of these complaints resulted in new investigative action.”

About 26% of enquiries and investigations concerned financial advisers – the highest share among the financial services sectors.

“These relate to either suspected breaches of the code of professional conduct for authorised financial advisers, non-registration or non-authorisation and non-compliance with the Financial Advisers Act, as well as potential Crimes Act offences,” the report says.

“Failure to maintain proper client records and to record discussions with clients is a common weakness in the types of cases we have considered so far, even though these are simply basic requirements for good client services.”