Rice Warner, Deloitte and David Bell were the consultants used by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) is in developing its superannuation heatmaps, but none of them were determinative in the outcome.
APRA discreetly named the consultants on its web site after a fortnight earlier refusing to do so before a Parliamentary committee but, in doing so, the regulator took responsibility for its actions and made clear the limited role played by the consultants.
The descriptions with respect to both Deloitte and Rice Warner made very clear that no formal opinion or report was provided by either consultant, while with respect to Bell it said that he had reviewed and provided observations and suggestions.
The following represents APRA’s description of the role played by the consultants, with Money Management having been told that both the consultants and the regulator had been subject to mutual non-disclosure agreements.
“APRA regularly engages with external specialists to assist with specific projects such as the development of the heatmap and its superannuation data transformation program.
The following consultants were engaged to assist with the initial development of the heatmap:
Rice Warner also assisted APRA in finalising the metrics but did not review the final version of the MySuper Product Heatmap metrics, methodology or reporting as launched by APRA.”
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