The government is delaying full automatic enrolment in the KiwiSaver scheme which helps people save for their retirement.
The government said automatic enrolment would cost $514 million over four years, which would put its plan to return to budget surplus by 2014/15 at risk.
Auto enrolment was originally planned to start in 2014/15.
Currently people are automatically enrolled in Kiwisaver when they start a new job and they can opt out. There are still a large number of people who have not been auto-enrolled by this mechanism.
Finance Minister Bill English says auto enrolment will proceed when there is enough money to pay for it.
The government is also tightening disclosure rules for six default providers of KiwiSaver to make it easier to compare fees and the performance of funds.
Investors are assigned to default providers if they don't choose one. About 500,000 people are with default providers.
The seven-year term of the current providers expires on June 14, 2014.
Currently default providers are restricted to holding no less than 15 per cent and no more than 25 per cent in growth assets.
The Ministry of Economic Development will issue a discussion paper on a review of default providers later this year.
In the last budget the government increased the minimum employee contribution to 3 per cent from 2 per cent. That starts on April 1, 2013.
About 1.9 million New Zealanders are members and funds invested total $12 billion.
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