Face Value: Money entrepreneur Ralph Stewart's credit warning

Ralph Stewart has launched an annuity business allowing the over 65's to turn their nest eggs into a predictable lifetime income.

That may not sound revolutionary, until you realise the Retirement Income Group is now the only annuity offered in a country with a rapidly aging population.

Stewart, a veteran of the insurance industry, modestly refers to himself as a "financial labourer", but he's a chip off the old block, his father having instilled some powerful money lessons into him when he was just a boy, including his warning of how frivolous borrowing can destroy your freedom.

 

The article then goes on to ask:

How financially savvy are you?

How did you pick up your savvy money skills?

What was your first paid work?

How much has money changed lives since then, do you think? How much will they change in the next 30 years?

If a child asked you the best way to make money, what would you say?

If you were prime minister for a day, and could change one thing to improve money lives of Kiwis (or a specific sub-set of them) what would it be?

 

To read Ralph's answers and the full article click here.

Published in the Sunday Star Times on 28 February 2016.