Quote Originally Posted by chrisw View Post
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.
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.