Asteron is reported to have opted for Grosvenor as its preferred transfer partner following its confirmation that it would close down its $33 million KiwiSaver scheme today.

"The reality is that the opportunity for economic scale simply doesn’t exist for all [KiwiSaver] suppliers, which has become increasingly clear as the market has matured and stabilised", Asteron’s Managing Director Sean Carroll posted.

The announced shut down of the Asteron's KiwiSaver scheme, flagged by Good Returns a fortnight ago, is ranked as the third provider to close up shop after the Australian-owned EoSaver and union fund IRIS closed down two years ago.

Asteron Life possesses over $1.1 billion of funds under management in New Zealand and operates the financial protection needs of nearly 203,000 clients. However, it was only able to corner some $33m of the available $5 billion KiwiSaver market — or less than 0.4 percent of KiwiSaver customers.

In addition, Carroll revealed that KiwiSaver market is not fully experienced and seeks further consolidation, and while their scheme had unceasingly showed good performance over the past year, they now need to concentrate on widening their core business of life and income protection insurance.