Get Sorted On Money Matters @ www.sorted.org.nz

27 September 2001

Media release

Get sorted on money matters @ www.sorted.org.nz

We invite you to have a sneak preview of www.sorted.org.nz: a new website for anyone who wants to make better use of their money.

Developed by the Retirement Commission, Sorted is designed as part of a strategy of building New Zealanders' financial literacy.

The programme aims to help people: make better decisions about saving, investing or taking on debt; budget better; teach their children better money management skills; and ultimately, to have a better retirement through learning better financial skills throughout life.

The Sorted programme is centred around a website - www.sorted.org.nz - which is being launched with new promotional activity on 30 September 2001.

Public education manager Liz Read said Sorted was unique.

"It is a personalised, interactive and fun way to improve your financial skills - but most importantly of all it is completely independent.

"We have designed the site for all New Zealanders - from young people through to those nearing and in retirement. It provides a personalised and private approach to financial planning.

"With the calculators and other interactive tools, Sorted users can enter their own details to find the answers to their money management questions, in private and in their own time.

"Getting Sorted can be quick and easy - or it can be serious and comprehensive - depending on the user," Liz Read said.

What you can do on the site:

* Find out your money personality profile - and learn your money management strengths and weaknesses.
* Work out what you're worth (your net worth) and set goals for the future.
* Manage your budget better with our comprehensive budget calculator.
* Use the savings calculators and Goal Machine to build a plan to achieve your savings goals, and to understand the power of compound interest.
* Find out exactly how much your debt is costing you in interest - and how to pay it off faster.
* Get advice on choosing an investment advisor and picking the right investment products to suit your circumstances.
* Develop a financial plan for retirement.
* Refer to our hot tips and Kiwi stories to bring financial planning concepts to life.

The site has been designed to meet some real challenges - it had to have top-of-the-line interaction in its calculators, and the ability for people to save and come back to information; and it needed to look good and be easy to navigate. But because Sorted needed to be accessible to as many people as possible, it meant not creating a site that was too "heavy" in graphics or other features.

The other challenge was how to make a site about an inherently dry and complex topic simple and engaging.

The result, created for the Retirement Commission by Dunham Bremmer Interactive in association with Saatchi and Saatchi, is a site that is clean, clear, easy to navigate and - most importantly - a useful tool for helping New Zealanders get sorted on money matters.

The online focus is new for the Retirement Commission.

"We've had a website for a long time - what's new for us is that the website is now central to our public education programme, not peripheral." says Liz Read.

"With limited funding, our ultimate challenge has been to make sure as many people as possible know about - and use - our new information resource. "With this in mind we have developed a comprehensive advertising campaign, featuring television advertisements, bus ads and online advertisements. The character you see featured throughout the site is revealed in the advertising. We have also developed an offline publication, which has a strong emphasis of helping and encouraging those without internet access to get online.

"In officialese, we are extending digital opportunities. But in simple terms, we're trying to increase the number of people who will get value out of our financial skills information."

ends

For further information: Liz Read Sorted Public Education Manager (04) 494 6242

© Scoop Media