The general insurance industry seems to have been more prepared for New Zealand’s new Financial Service Providers Register (FSPR) than their financial services counterparts.

A Ministry of Economic Development spokesman told insuranceNEWS.com.au a total of 4592 NZ brokers signed up as “registered advisers” on the FSPR before the March 31 deadline.

Financial planners, including those selling life insurance, have been much slower with registrations.

The spokesman says only 292 financial planners have been registered as “authorised financial advisers” (AFA) with another 1335 awaiting authorisation by the Securities Commission.

“We are seeing between 50 to 100 AFA applications arriving each day at the moment,” he said.

In addition, a number of brokers and financial planners have been included on the FSPR with the “qualified financial entities” (QFE) registrations.

As either employees or representatives of a QFE, they are not required to register as individuals.

But details of each adviser are included on the register under the QFE entry.