Help me find a NZ Broker who works with overseas residents

Hi all!

I am hoping that someone in the community here can help me find a new broker ASAP. Essentially I am a New Zealand citizen and have been a customer of ASB Securities for almost 20 years. In 2019 the family and I moved to Germany for a career change (probably max 5 years) and so my residency has changed. This morning, ASB Securities advised me that they do not cater to overseas residents and so have given me two weeks to either sell my portfolio or transfer to another broker. This is even though I am maintaining a New Zealand address. I think this all maybe because ASB used Commonwealth Securities as their agent and this is CommSecs policy.

So, is there another broker I can transfer my holdings to that may be able to help? I'd prefer to keep dealing with a NZ broker if possible.

Cheers, Chris W.

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Originally Posted by chrisw

Hi all!

I am hoping that someone in the community here can help me find a new broker ASAP. Essentially I am a New Zealand citizen and have been a customer of ASB Securities for almost 20 years. In 2019 the family and I moved to Germany for a career change (probably max 5 years) and so my residency has changed. This morning, ASB Securities advised me that they do not cater to overseas residents and so have given me two weeks to either sell my portfolio or transfer to another broker. This is even though I am maintaining a New Zealand address. I think this all maybe because ASB used Commonwealth Securities as their agent and this is CommSecs policy.

So, is there another broker I can transfer my holdings to that may be able to help? I'd prefer to keep dealing with a NZ broker if possible.

Cheers, Chris W.

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You will find all other brokers in NZ would be under the same regulation. Specifically the FMA - a lot has happened this past year and all banks and financials institutions in NZ are licensed by the FMA. Lose the license and they lose their ability to do business in NZ. When prior, the NZ gov't would of just kept a blind eye and brokers would just continued carrying on with their business.

Maintaining a NZ address means nothing; Non-Resident means you're away from NZ for more than 183 days and hold no residential tie or significant tie in NZ.

Now that you're in Germany, welcome to the plethora of regulations brought on by the EU. If I were you, I would sell up your NZ portfolio and wire all the funds to where you live and then invest accordingly. The incentive is there to do that because on most part, disbursement from your NZ portfolio would tax free. However, from the German tax point of view, they may view it entirely different and tax the gains in later years when you come to sell.

5 Years can be a long time... but changing residency is a hassle. You may like Germany and stay there indefinitely... meaning it's better to take your $ where ever you go.

I am also a New Zealand Citizen resident outside of New Zealand/Australia (in my case Malaysia) and ASB are perfectly happy to be my broker for NZX based shares.
However they are not my broker for ASX shares, because of my residency.

I presume that this is your situation, your ASX listed stuff is the problem.

I joined Interactive Brokers and shifted all my ASX shares over to them and so far I am happy with them, but your requirements may be different.
You can PM me for more info if you want, currently wandering around Portugal so only an hour different from Germany.

For what it’s worth, 9 months latter chrisw, I’ve been non-resident for many years and also have an account with ASB and had no issues

However, Snow Leopard (& other non-residents) I am a bit concerned by the growing trend of non-residents being excluded from open offers and rights issues – appreciate this is mainly for regulatory reasons, but the companies concerned seem to have no problem accommodating their overseas institutional clients (no surprise there…)

Are you also facing that same issue, or do you use a NZ address with the registrars?

It may also be that NZ brokers & banks are 'cherry picking'. I've noticed to be the case in the US when the FMA came out, they went after all the banks and brokers in the US (well around the world), issuing nasty notices that if they were serving to NZ residents, they must be licensed by them or else they would be breaking NZ law. I've read many NZ residents had their US broker notifying them to close their account but at the same time, keeping the few large account holders or those that have been dealing with them for many years.

To the OP, it could also mean that Germany may have some silly criteria that NZ has by imposing other nations to comply with their rules. Meaning, 'not ALL NZ non-residents are treated the same around the world'.

I'm quite concerned about these regulations and will need to keep on top of it for when the time comes my family & I declare non-NZ residency.

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For what it’s worth, 9 months latter chrisw, I’ve been non-resident for many years and also have an account with ASB and had no issues

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Has ASB not contacted you on CRS (OECD's Common Reporting Standard regulation) ??? CRS requires ALL banks and brokers in NZ to file tax paperwork to the resident country you live in. Some 120 nations around the world are part of this international wide regulation (fortunately the USA is not part of it), and from what I understand, the banks find the CRS a huge inconvenience that they would rather close non-resident client accounts than to deal with sending their account info to their tax dept, to the country where they reside.

The OP would face this same issue, ASB would requires CRS forms filled out and that information on their account get's forwarded EVERY YEAR to the German tax dept. Again if I was in his shoes, I would close up and move the funds abroad.

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Originally Posted by Mawaihakona

For what it’s worth, 9 months latter chrisw, I’ve been non-resident for many years and also have an account with ASB and had no issues

However, Snow Leopard (& other non-residents) I am a bit concerned by the growing trend of non-residents being excluded from open offers and rights issues – appreciate this is mainly for regulatory reasons, but the companies concerned seem to have no problem accommodating their overseas institutional clients (no surprise there…)

Are you also facing that same issue, or do you use a NZ address with the registrars?

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I have all my NZX shares registered against a NZ postal address ( provided by PrivateBox [ referral link for PrivateBox ] who I would thoroughly recommend ) and have no problems with offers & issues.

However for ASX shares, I use Interactive Brokers and it seems totally random as to what I get in on.

Cheers

Thanks for the suggestion Snow Leopard, I'll give it a look

SBQ, yes re CRS, ASB informed me they would be reporting information to the tax authorities of my resident country - anecdotally I've heard that what financial institutions are reporting is only cash held in bank accounts and interest derived from (not transactions or stock positions) so not necessarily an onerous reporting requirement for them

So who knows, for chrisw, maybe it is cherrypicking, or German requirements or...