The Lander & Rogers Superannuation Alert is a brief overview of new developments in the superannuation industry.

Type Subject matter Source Description

Treasury

 Consultation paper on ASIC fees for service

Consultation paper

Media release

On 22 November 2017, the Treasury released a consultation paper in relation to the introduction of a "fees-for-service" industry funding model for ASIC. On 23 November 2017, ASIC issued a media release welcoming the release of the proposed changes.

ASIC stated that "while around 90% of ASIC’s regulatory activities will now be recovered as part of the Government’s industry funding arrangements, the remaining 10% will be recovered via fees-for-service".

Fees-for-service apply to:

  • "licencing and professional registration services
  • processing of relief applications, and
  • ASIC’s formal compliance review of documents lodged by entities under the Corporations Act".

Submissions for the consultation paper close on 15 December 2017.

ASIC

 Appointment of expert for RG97 review

Media release

On 28 November 2017, ASIC announced that it had appointed Darren McShane "to conduct an expert review of fees and costs disclosure in superannuation and management investments".

Mr McShane was recently the Chief Regulation and Policy Officer of the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority in Hong Kong and led the development of the regulation of the Hong Kong pensions system. ASIC explained that the aim of the review was to "ensure that legislative modifications and regulatory guidance issued by ASIC will best meet in practice the objective of improving fees and costs transparency for consumers".
APRA Productivity Commission's review of competitiveness and efficiency in superannuation system

Submission

On 6 November 2017, APRA provided a further submission in response to the Productivity Commission's review into the efficiency and competitiveness of the superannuation system in Australia.

APRA provided additional information in relation to the "limitations in expenses data collected by APRA", "governance practices in superannuation" and "APRA's approach to supervising the delivery of member outcomes".

APRA noted that it has identified a group of 28 Registrable Superannuation Entities (RSEs) "for heightened scrutiny and engagement in the near term" due to those RSE licensees appearing "not to be consistently delivering quality member outcomes". APRA added that the 'majority of these RSEs are public offer funds and approximately half have a MySuper product.
APRA Quarterly performance and statistics publications Quarterly Superannuation Performance publication

Quarterly MySuper Statistics

On 21 November 2017 and 22 November 2017 respectively, APRA released its Quarterly Superannuation Performance publication and the Quarterly MySuper Statistics report for the September 2017 quarter.

The Quarterly Superannuation Performance publication stated that "superannuation assets totalled $2.5 trillion at the end of the September 2017 quarter", representing "an 8.7 per cent increase in total superannuation assets" over the previous 12 months. "Total assets in MySuper products totalled $610.2 billion" at the end of the September quarter, "a 24.0 per cent increase" over the previous 12 months.