POWERED BY MOMENTUM MEDIA
ASIC puts super trustees on notice
Superannuation trustees are on notice from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) to improve their internal dispute resolution systems after a targeted review of trustee compliance.
This found some trustees had sub-standard arrangements for managing complaints.
ASIC selected 35 trustees for an initial review, followed by a more detailed review of a subset of 10 trustees. Each fund had at least 50,000 members and predominantly over $10 billion in assets as at 30 June 2021 while the chosen subset funds had approximately $361 billion in assets across 5.1 million member accounts.
Regarding timings, ASIC said a number of trustees failed to respond within the maximum timeframe of 45 days and failed to complainants informed. Too many written responses omitted mandatory content relating taking the matter to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) and trustees’ internal reporting lacked sufficient details to identify deficiencies in complaints handling.
ASIC said there had also been a ‘missed opportunity’ for trustees to improve and detect issues with member complaints which could have improved their products and services, benefitting membership.
Danielle Press, ASIC commissioner, said: “Superannuation fund members have a right to make complaints to their fund and to expect their complaints to be handled fairly and in a timely manner. Yet, our review found trustees have fallen short.
“We saw examples of trustees’ failure to comply with fundamental obligations, which could lead to poor outcomes, such as consumers abandoning a complaint rather than seeing it through. While a few trustees did the right thing, in many cases there were serious deficiencies in trustees’ dispute resolution processes and how they monitored and responded to complaints.”
ASIC was writing to these trustees about issues specific to their compliance with RG 271 and they would be required to take prompt action to remedy the issues identified. The majority would need to report to ASIC on improvements made.
ASIC was also considering other regulatory action where more serious concerns were identified.
AUTHOR
Laura Dew
Laura Dew is editor at Super Review. Prior to joining SR, she spent five years working at Investment Week in the UK covering asset and wealth management.
Recommended for you
The super fund announced that Gregory has been appointed to its executive leadership team, taking on the fresh role of chief advice officer.
The deputy governor has warned that, as super funds’ overseas assets grow and liquidity risks rise, they will need to expand their FX hedge books to manage currency exposure effectively.
Super funds have built on early financial year momentum, as growth funds deliver strong results driven by equities and resilient bonds.
The super fund has announced that Mark Rider will step down from his position of chief investment officer (CIO) after deciding to “semi-retire” from full-time work.
TOP PERFORMING FUNDS
ACS FIXED INT - AUSTRALIA/GLOBAL BOND
Fund name
3y(%)pa
1
DomaCom DFS Mortgage
76.97 3 y p.a(%)
2
Global X 21Shares Bitcoin ETF
76.46 3 y p.a(%)
3
UBS Solactive Global Pure Gold Miners UCITS ETF Dis USD
51.13 3 y p.a(%)
4
Global X GlobalX FANG+ ETF
45.15 3 y p.a(%)
5
Select Baker steel Gold Institutional
43.78 3 y p.a(%)
