About Canstar

Welcome to Canstar!

We have a team of over 80 talented people who collect, analyse and research loans, cards, policies and products. We see consumer education as a major part of our role. We are trying to make our site useful and easy to use, and you will often see our research and researchers quoted in the press and on television.

Our star ratings system is designed to help consumers increase their chances of finding the right product. We would encourage you to add five-star products to your shopping list.

Frequently asked questions

• How do your ratings work?
• How are you different to comparison sites?
• How do you get paid?
• Do banks or insurers have to pay to be rated?
• Can you give me advice?
• Who owns you?

1. How do your ratings work?

The secret to our ratings is that we compare on value, not price. Do you want to buy the cheapest car on the market? Some do, but most want a car that meets their needs in terms of size, safety, looks and so on.

Our ratings balance price and features, to get overall value, which we then convert to a number of stars. We collect large amounts of information on thousands of financial products. Our research committee then determine the ratings using a formula or methodology. This is always displayed on the website so you can see how we have done it.

Canstar NZ holds a Financial Advice Provider Licence and takes all its compliance obligations very seriously.

2. How are you different to other ‘comparison sites’? Should I trust you?

Canstar is a research company and we are different to comparison sites for several reasons.

We compare on value, not price.
We display a very broad range of products, including major brands.
We have financial experts on staff.
We are transparent. We publish our methodologies and the data used.
We have been around for more than 20 years

3. How do you get paid?

Canstar is committed to offering comprehensive information to consumers for free.

To generate this quality information we employ around 60 staff with extensive experience in financial services, and we run large computer systems. This costs millions of dollars every year, and we need to generate revenue in a range of ways to pay for it. There are four major ways we get paid.

Subscriptions to our databases: Banks subscribe to our databases so that they can keep an eye on their competitors without having to spend hundreds of hours on competitor websites. Interestingly, when Canstar first started in 1992 the internet didn’t exist and staff had to walk the streets to do this. From a consumer’s point of view, the fact that banks are prepared to subscribe to our databases says a lot about the quality of our data.

Ratings licenses: Once five-star winners have been determined, financial institutions have the opportunity to use the Canstar rating or award in their marketing. A fee is negotiated for allowing the winner to use the Canstar name and award. We don’t disclose this as we negotiate it individually in every case, just as newspapers don’t disclose the exact amount that an ad has been sold for. Canstar’s research team determines five star ratings without fear or favour.

Advertising: Canstar allows limited advertising on its site. Our goal is to present quality advertising that is highly relevant to consumers. We always include an advertising or sponsored link sign above the ad so people know what it is.

Lead referrals: On our tables of data and also on some advertising we provide links to third party sites. The primary purpose of these links is to help consumers get more information to enable them to make informed decisions. Secondly, we may receive payment for these referrals. Again, we do not arrange our data tables or base our ratings information depending on how much a third party may pay us.

Canstar takes its research very seriously and goes to great pains to ensure that our results are not influenced by commercial arrangements. For details, see How we get paid.

4. Do banks or insurers have to pay to be rated?

Banks, mutual banks, credit unions, building societies and other providers that subscribe to Canstar’s database are automatically included in the Canstar ratings process, which includes daily collection of rate and fee data and regular collection of feature data for each product.

If institutions do not subscribe to the Canstar database, the research team may include the provider depending on their size, relevance to consumers, range of products etc. For example, a very small provider which doesn’t service many consumers might not be included.

Insurance, Superannuation and Managed Investment providers are included depending on their size, relevance to consumers, range of products etc. In some cases we will exclude certain providers. For example, in health insurance we only rate open funds that anyone can join and in superannuation we only rate funds that are in the top 30 or with greater than $100m in funds under management.

Canstar’s objective is to cover as much of the market as possible to provide consumers with the widest possible coverage.

5. Can you give me advice?

Canstar is not licensed to give personal advice. We can only give general advice that is not tailored to an individual’s needs. We strongly encourage consumers to get personal financial advice from a qualified adviser.

6. Who owns and manages you?

Canstar is not owned by a financial institution. It is privately owned by private shareholders.

CANSTAR’S NEW ZEALAND OFFICE

Email: enquiries@canstar.co.nz

Address:

Back to Home Page