Brand strength and niche positioning will be deciding factors in the survival of small to medium superannuation funds as the industry continues to consolidate chief executive of Non-Government Schools (NGS) Super Anthony Rodwell-Ball said.
According to Rodwell-Ball, superannuation funds need to respect the brand value they bring and the feel they create for their members.
"Our board sees no value in diluting the strong niche position that we've got, so we would really want to maintain that niche position in order to survive," he said.
Having hundreds of thousands of members with no common linkage would make it hard to maintain high levels of service and member engagement, he said.
The fund's target market was the professional community-focused sector, with education at the centre making up approximately 60-65 per cent and the remainder in credit unions, mutuals and some aged, health and child care from the UC Super merger in March, according to Rodwell-Ball.
Rodwell-Ball personally dealt with complaints arising from documents with his name on it and has about three dozen members that contact him directly with their queries.
"While everyone's screaming scale and arguing for the benefits of scale, you still have to be able to maintain as personal a relationship with the member as you can, and that's hard when you get up to the many hundreds of thousands of members," he said.
But NGS Super has not ruled out any possible mergers, Rodwell-Ball said.
"As long as the fit was right and we don't become an all-things to all-people multi-employer multi-industry fund … there are some clear and obvious potential marriages in the industry generally. There are a number of sectors where you could see key consolidation – I think education is one of those," he said.
He said competition between superannuation funds was good because it made the industry perform better.
