Industry faces SuperStream technology risk: IQ Group

Superannuation funds should implement SuperStream technologies that are abstracted from current systems to allow for future changes, according to IQ Group chief executive Graham Sammells.

He said the industry faced a technology risk in that markets for new technologies and tools for the new standards were not yet mature.

"The fact is, the standards only really passed in December, so traditional software vendors typically won't lift a finger of investment until they know what they need to build to, and therefore it's a significant risk that the industry has to manage," Sammells said.

Sammells said the standards that related to the data that funds send to each other and that employers send to funds — which was controlled by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) — were still subject to outstanding interpretation issues.

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The universal AS4 standards were only finalised in January, with little movement from technology providers yet, Sammells said. He queried who would be the authority on interpreting those standards.

Sammells said super funds were currently making choices about technologies and service providers in relation to SuperStream, but as time ran out many of the required integration points could not be implemented.

"Don't put in a whole bunch of proprietary lock-in arrangements today — be flexible, make sure that what you put in is abstracted from your systems so that you can make future changes," he said.

"Expect over the next few years the standards to change in detail because they're new — all the lessons learned will result in updates," he said.

Sammells said that although the ATO was trying to resolve all of the outstanding SuperStream issues, there just wasn't enough time.

"We're herding cats here — we've got to coordinate the whole industry," he said.

"I think the implementation of technology and process to get straight-through processing in the new standards will evolve over the next 18 months, but then there's still a long time waiting for that pay-back to come," he said.