Should You Trust Finfluencers? A New Zealand Guide

Should You Trust Finfluencers?

For financial decisions that affect your money, no. Most finfluencer content is not regulated financial advice, carries no accountability if it costs you, and comes from people with no regulatory obligation to act in your interest. General content about budgeting, saving, or how compound interest works is often fine and sometimes genuinely good. The risk starts when a creator recommends financial products to an audience whose individual circumstances they know nothing about. In New Zealand, giving that kind of personalised recommendation without a licence is illegal.

We see the consequences of this regularly in advisory work. On occasions people arrive having assembled a portfolio from social media recommendations that ignored their goals, risk appetite, other assets, phase of life, or tax status, or sometimes they even believe they hold assets they do not. They have been scammed.

In most cases, the content they followed was not necessarily dishonest. It was generic, and generic "financial advice" applied to a unique life creates problems that are expensive to unwind.

What Is a Finfluencer?

A financial influencer ("finfluencer") is anyone who uses social media to share opinions, tips, or commentary about money, investing, and personal finance. The term covers a wide range: from qualified professionals building an audience to anonymous accounts promoting cryptocurrency for affiliate commissions. The format varies across TikTok (where the subculture is sometimes called FinTok), Instagram, YouTube, and podcasts, but the core question is the same.

Can you rely on what this person is telling you?

How Finfluencers Make Money

Understanding the business model is the first step toward evaluating the content. Finfluencers typically earn income through one or more of these channels:

• Affiliate commissions. A fee earned when followers sign up for an investment app, trading platform, or financial product using a referral link.
• Sponsored content. Financial product providers pay for posts, videos, or mentions. Disclosure is required under the Advertising Standards Authority's Influencer Identification Guideline, but compliance varies widely.
• Paid courses and memberships. Many finfluencers sell courses on trading, property, or cryptocurrency, sometimes at prices that exceed the cost of a session with a licensed adviser.
• Platform ad revenue. YouTube and TikTok pay creators based on views, which rewards attention-grabbing content over careful accuracy.

The problem arises when the audience cannot see the incentive behind a recommendation. A finfluencer promoting an investment app because they earn $50 per sign-up has a different motivation from someone sharing a trading method that worked for them personally.

Why Financial Content on Social Media Has Grown

Social media platforms offer financial content that is free, global, accessible, and presented without jargon. These qualities explain the rapid audience growth, particularly among younger demographics. According to the Charles Schwab 2024 Modern Wealth Survey, 38% of Gen Z respondents get financial information from YouTube and 33% from TikTok. A 2022 study by the FINRA Investor Education Foundation found over 60% of US investors under 35 use social media for investment information. No equivalent NZ-specific survey exists, but advisory experience suggests the pattern is similar here, particularly among younger New Zealanders.

A 2023 article by the World Economic Forum, "Are 'finfluencers' the future of financial advice?", noted that finfluencers have been especially effective at reaching younger and historically underserved audiences. Improving financial literacy from any source has value, and social media has demonstrably widened access to financial concepts that were previously confined to textbooks and professional conversations.

The Core Risks of Following Finfluencer Content

No qualifications or accountability

Most finfluencers have no formal training in financial assets, financial advice, tax, or investment management. They are under no regulatory obligation to act in your interest, carry no professional indemnity insurance, and face no disciplinary process if their suggestions cause you harm. If you follow a finfluencer's recommendation and lose money, there is no complaints authority, no dispute resolution scheme, and no comeback.

Licensed financial advisers in New Zealand operate under the Code of Professional Conduct for Financial Advice Services, carry dispute resolution membership, and are subject to oversight by the Financial Markets Authority (FMA).

Conflicts of interest you cannot see

Even when finfluencers disclose sponsorships (and many do not), the audience rarely appreciates how much revenue is at stake. Affiliate deals, referral bonuses, and course sales can generate far more income than any investment return the finfluencer personally earns. The incentive is to keep you clicking, not to keep you informed.

Consider the cost comparison: a popular finfluencer course might cost $297. That is within the range of a single session with a licensed financial adviser (typical NZ initial consultation fees generally fall between $250 and $550), and in that session the adviser will review your specific tax position, insurance, debt, and investment mix. The adviser is legally required to act in your interest, tailor their recommendations to your circumstances, and participate in a formal dispute resolution process if something goes wrong. The course comes with none of those protections.

Generic content applied to specific lives

Financial decisions depend on individual income, debt, tax position, family structure, risk tolerance, and goals. What works for a single 25-year-old with no dependants and a high risk appetite could be harmful for a 45-year-old supporting children and approaching peak earning years. Finfluencer content, by its nature, cannot account for any of this.

There is a useful logical test. If a finfluencer genuinely possessed a reliable method for generating outsized investment returns, they would be managing institutional money or running a hedge fund rather than selling courses to followers. By the time a technique is packaged into a TikTok video, it has almost certainly been arbitraged away by institutional investors with billions of dollars and quantitative teams. It is a point made frequently in investment literature, from John Bogle to Burton Malkiel, and it holds.

Algorithms amplify the least reliable content

Social media platforms surface content based on engagement, not accuracy. Bold claims, emotional hooks, and simple answers to complex questions travel furthest. A nuanced explanation of why diversification matters will always lose the algorithm race to "I turned $500 into $50,000 in 90 days." The content that reaches the most people is often the content that most deserves scrutiny.

What New Zealand Law Says

The legal boundary in New Zealand sits between general financial commentary (permitted) and regulated financial advice (requires a licence). Part 6 of the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 defines regulated financial advice as a recommendation or opinion about acquiring or disposing of a financial product, given to a retail client. The maximum penalty for an individual providing unlicensed advice is a $200,000 fine under section 489 of the Act.

In practice, this means:

• Probably fine: "I personally invest in a diversified portfolio of index funds." This is a statement of personal experience.
• Likely regulated advice: "You should move your KiwiSaver Scheme to [specific provider's growth fund]." This is a recommendation about a specific financial product directed at the audience.
• Disclosure obligation: "Check out this investment app and use my code for a free share." This affiliate promotion triggers disclosure requirements under ASA guidelines and may cross into regulated advice depending on the framing.

Content that covers general financial topics without recommending specific products generally falls outside regulated advice. The line is crossed when a creator recommends a specific financial product to their audience.

The FMA's 2021 guide for financial influencers spells out this distinction. The FMA noted it welcomes people discussing financial matters online but warned that influencers risk crossing into advice they are neither qualified nor authorised to give.

Separately, the Fair Trading Act 1986 prohibits misleading or deceptive conduct in trade, enforced by the Commerce Commission. Penalties for individuals can reach $600,000 under section 40 of that Act. A finfluencer making false claims about investment returns could face action under that legislation regardless of whether they hold a financial advice licence.

You can verify whether anyone providing financial advice holds a licence by searching the Financial Service Providers Register (FSPR). The FMA also publishes a warnings list for entities operating without proper licensing.

How New Zealand Compares to Australia and the UK

New Zealand has the legal tools to act against unlicensed finfluencers, but enforcement has been slower and lighter than in comparable jurisdictions. To date, the FMA has not prosecuted a finfluencer. The FMA's 2023 Investor Confidence Survey found increasing concern among New Zealand investors about misinformation, but regulatory action has not kept pace with that concern.

In Australia, providing unlicensed financial services carries penalties of up to five years' imprisonment and fines exceeding A$1 million under the Corporations Act 2001. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has enforced this. A finfluencer operating as "Fibonarchery" was sentenced in May 2023 to two years and two months' imprisonment for a pump-and-dump scheme. Another, known as "ASX Wolf," had injunctions issued against him after the Federal Court found he had provided unlicensed financial services.

In the United Kingdom, the Financial Conduct Authority reported removing or amending over 10,000 illegal financial promotions in its 2023 annual report on financial promotions.

For New Zealand consumers, the practical implication is that the burden of identifying unreliable financial content falls largely on the individual. Knowing what to look for matters more here than in jurisdictions with active enforcement.

Red Flags and Positive Signals

Warning signs in finfluencer content:

• Guaranteed or specific returns promised (markets are inherently uncertain; guarantees signal either dishonesty or ignorance)
• Urgency or scarcity pressure ("only 10 spots left in my course")
• Luxury lifestyle presented as proof of financial expertise (cars, watches, and resort locations are frequently rented, financed, or exaggerated)
• Paid courses or "DM me" upsells
• No disclosure of sponsorships, affiliate links, or financial incentives
• Recommendations about specific financial products from someone not on the FSPR
• Oversimplification of complex topics ("one weird trick" framing)

Signs of more trustworthy content:

• The creator acknowledges limitations in their own knowledge
• Claims are linked to verifiable sources
• The creator does not sell courses or products related to the content they produce
• Content acknowledges that individual circumstances vary
• The creator is transparent about their qualifications (or lack of them)

If you have a specific finfluencer in mind and want to know whether they are licensed, search their name on the FSPR linked above. If they are not listed, they are not authorised to give you personalised financial advice in New Zealand.

Two people can watch the same financial video and draw entirely different conclusions about its reliability. The checklist above is a starting point, but it requires honest self-assessment. The cognitive biases that make finfluencer content compelling, including confirmation bias, social proof, and fear of missing out, are the same ones that make it difficult to evaluate objectively.

Where to Find Trustworthy Financial Information in New Zealand

Being more sceptical of social media financial content is only useful if you have somewhere better to go. Several free, high-quality resources exist in New Zealand:

• Sorted.org.nz: Run by Te Ara Ahunga Ora (the Retirement Commission) and funded by government. Covers budgeting, KiwiSaver Scheme basics, debt management, and retirement planning.
• FMA investor resources: Guides on investing, scam identification, and understanding financial products.
• Self-directed learning: If you prefer to teach yourself how to invest, starting with credible written sources rather than social media content reduces the risk of acting on conflicted or unqualified advice.
• Licensed financial advisers: The core value a licensed adviser provides is personalisation and accountability. An adviser assesses your specific income, debt, goals, and risk profile, and is legally required to act in your interest. If something goes wrong, there is a formal complaints and dispute resolution process. Understanding how to choose the right financial adviser is a worthwhile step if you are considering this option.

One pattern we notice in advisory conversations: people often assume that once they have "done their research" online, they have covered the same ground a professional would. In practice, the gap is usually not in the information they found but in what they did not think to look for. Tax interactions between different account types, insurance layers that only become relevant in specific family structures, or KiwiSaver Scheme settings that made sense five years ago but no longer match their income or timeline. Those are the issues that rarely surface in a ten-minute video.

Joseph Darby, CEO of Become Wealth, expands on this:

"We regularly meet people who've formed financial opinions or even made decisions based on something they saw online. Sometimes those decisions were fine. Sometimes they've locked in a problem. The most common one is embracing material which is designed for US or other jurisidictions where different tax rules, different financial products, and different market conditions apply."

Making This Practical

Financial education from any source is better than none. The goal is to consume financial social media content critically: check whether the creator has credentials, look for disclosed conflicts, and before acting on anything, consider carefully whether the content accounts for your specific circumstances.

If you have already made financial decisions based on social media content and are unsure whether they were appropriate, a financial adviser can review your position and identify any issues worth correcting. The sooner that review happens, the more options you typically have.

If you find yourself evaluating a financial decision where the variables feel interconnected, such as assets, debt structure, goals, and investment mix, that complexity is usually the signal that a conversation with a qualified and regulated financial adviser will surface issues a social media post cannot. Book a complimentary initial consultation with one of our team.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a finfluencer legally discuss KiwiSaver in New Zealand?

Sharing general information about how KiwiSaver Schemes work is typically fine. Recommending a specific KiwiSaver Scheme or advising someone to switch providers crosses into regulated financial advice, which requires a Financial Advice Provider licence under the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013.

What should I do if I think a finfluencer is giving unlicensed advice?

You can report concerns directly to the FMA through their online contact form. The Commerce Commission handles complaints about misleading or deceptive conduct under the Fair Trading Act.

Are finfluencers required to disclose sponsorships in New Zealand?

Yes. The Advertising Standards Authority's Influencer Identification Guideline requires clear disclosure of paid partnerships and material connections. In practice, enforcement appears to rely primarily on complaints rather than proactive monitoring, and undisclosed sponsorships remain common.

How can I check if a finfluencer is licensed?

Search their name on the Financial Service Providers Register. If they are not listed, they are not authorised to provide personalised financial advice in New Zealand. The FMA also maintains a warnings list for entities operating without proper licensing.

What if I have already followed finfluencer advice and I am worried?

A licensed financial adviser can review the decisions you have made and assess whether anything needs correcting. Common issues include KiwiSaver Scheme settings that do not match your tax position or risk profile, missing insurance, and concentrated investment positions. The sooner these are identified, the easier they are to address.