Social media videos promoting ways to 'game' the KiwiSaver system

Inland revenue figures show a record number of hardship withdrawals from KiwiSaver is the past year. Between July 2024 and April 2025, more than $389 million's been taken out of KiwiSaver for financial hardship reasons. That's up from $300m on the year before. People can access KiwiSaver retirement funds in significant financial hardship, including for example to pay for food, power or palliative care. However, a fund manager told Checkpoint there is a multitude of social media videos full of workarounds to help people qualify for a hardship withdrawals and effectively game the system. General Manager for KiwiSaver Fisher Funds, David Boyle spoke to Lisa Owen.