Equip Super signs onto PractiFI platform

Equip Super has partnered with PractiFI as the multi-sector industry fund looks to expand its relationships with superannuation fund members.

According to PractiFI's founder, Adrian Johnstone, the superannuation industry today is marred by a product-first focus, with member engagement and customer retention seen as growing concerns for industry funds.   

 "Customer experience is increasingly becoming the key point of difference in the superannuation industry," he said.

"Today's systems are siloed and outmoded. They lack the ability to easily integrate or adapt."

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Equip Super's executive officer of strategic marketing and communications, Geoff Brooks, said the convergence in investment performance and fees among industry funds has culminated with a growing need for frictionless customer experience and relevant, real-time data insights.  

"Like most funds, we've been grappling with this idea of becoming better engaged with members and specifically we've been looking at process improvement," Brooks said.

"There's not the disparity in fees and performance [among] industry funds as there once was. Generally speaking, most funds have their moment in the sun, so the point of difference is going to be the [customer] experience and it's something that is intangible."

Brooks said that super funds were "starting to come to grips" with overlaying customer data with other third party data - such as economic indicators and movements in the Australian Securities Exchange - to determine the relevance of data and develop a better understanding of their members.

He said Equip Super was currently in the process of transitioning towards implementing psychographic segmentation to develop a single, holistic view of fund members.  

"We are going through a much wider digital transformation in the business. We've been into analytics for quite a while [as well as] behavioural segmentation and the PractiFI [partnership] is part of that," he said.

"The key challenge is interfacing these [data insights] with access to member administration platforms which are largely legacy platforms [and] determining what data is important."