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The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) has seen redundancy costs rise by almost 10-times year-on-year as total staff numbers fell by more than 40 over the same period. According to the 2025 FMA annual report, redundancy expenses spiked to more than $1 million compared to just over $111,000 in the previous financial year. “Redundancy and other termination payments of $1,031,026 were paid to thirty employees who ceased to be employees within the financial year ended 30 June 2025,” the report says. But the overall workforce dropped to 338 by June 30 this year compared to 382 at the same date in 2024. Permanent employee numbers declined to 320 from 344 during the 12-month period while just nine contractors were on the payroll as at the end of June 2025 versus 22 last year (and 29 at the peak in 2022). Nonetheless, the FMA saw salaries and wages jump to more than $50 million (2024: $43.9 million) as well as an $850,000 leap in other employee costs due to supplying “staff with life and health insurance from July 2024 onwards”, the report says. Almost 280 FMA staff earned more than $100,000 in the latest financial year, up from 224 in the 2024 period as chief executive, Samantha Barrass, also bumped-up into another $10,000 remuneration bracket to $640,000 to $650,000. Despite the year-on-year spike in employment costs, the FMA ended the period under-budget by about $750,000 on staff spending while also saving almost $2 million on other operating expenses. “Throughout the year, our focus has been on increased financial discipline, tighter cost controls, and careful reprioritisation of work across the organisation designed to ensure resources are focused on where they deliver the most value. As a result, operating expenditure was below budget across most areas, with permanent savings achieved in areas such as rent (following the one-off release of the Britomart Level 6 lease), professional services, travel, and staff welfare,” the report notes. “These favourable movements were partially offset by one-off transitional costs related to organisational restructuring, which included changes to our Transformation and Operational Delivery function.” Kari Jones joined the FMA as executive director transformation and operational delivery last October but has since been repurposed as executive director operational excellence and enablement. The FMA senior suite has also reduced from six to five following the departure of Daniel Trinder, executive director strategy, after balance date. Higher-than-forecast revenue of $80 million (against the budgeted $78.2 million) and cost savings of almost $1.3 million versus projected expenditure of $82.9 million saw the regulator report a deficit of $1.6 million – much lower than the expected shortfall of $4.7 million. “The revenue variance is largely driven by cost recoveries from successful litigation proceedings and higher-than-anticipated application fee income,” the report says. Following a surge in court actions, this year the FMA sought an increase in its dedicated annual litigation allocation (previously, $5 million with some ability to accrue funds). “A revised litigation funding agreement is currently being finalised and is intended to take effect from 1 July 2025,” the report says. “The new agreement is based on the existing framework and introduces a litigation reserve to ensure sufficient cash is available to support ongoing enforcement activities. In addition to regulator-initiated legal actions, the FMA is also facing an unspecified civil claim. “The matter is ongoing with damages being sought,” the report says. “The probability of the outcome is uncertain at 30 June 2025, and any financial impact cannot be reasonably estimated.” And in a busy year for the regulator as it took on new Conduct of Financial Institution licensing duties and prepared for extra consumer credit oversight responsibilities, the FMA reported a marginal uptick in some of its qualitative performance benchmarks. Some 55 per cent of stakeholders surveyed said the FMA had a “beneficial and proportionate approach” to regulation, compared to 49 per cent last year. At the same time, 56 per cent of respondents agreed the FMA was easy to do business with, up from 53 per cent in the 2024 survey. The FMA failed to achieve four of its 15 qualitative targets for the year with its biggest miss on a consumer metric where only 63 per cent said they had confidence in the “quality of regulation” against a target of 75 per cent. Nonetheless, FMA chair, Craig Stobo, says the proportion of those surveyed who said they benefited from engaging with the FMA increased from 54 per cent last year to 76 per cent in the latest reading. “A priority for me is that our outcomes-focused approach reduces unnecessary burden on industry,” Stobo says. “In support of the shift to a single licence for providers of multiple regulated financial services, which is part of the Government’s proposed financial services reforms, we have started engaging with industry on how licence conditions can be streamlined.” During the year, Kendall Flutey left the FMA board while Tracey Berry, Nick Hegan and Mariette van Ryn arrived as new directors.
