Ten superannuation funds have done most of the heavy lifting in terms of the Government’s hardship superannuation early release scheme, but new trends appear to be arising with respect to the volume of demands on those funds in the second tranche.
Data released by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has revealed that Australian Super continues to face heavy second tranche demand with 109,974 members seeking to make a second withdrawal alongside continuing heavy demand on HostPlus (67,085) and HESTA (36,031), and National Australia Bank’s NULIS (30,420), Sunsuper (91,277), REST (71,044).
However, this compares to AMP Superannuation which, according to the APRA data and in what be a data collection anomaly, appeared to meet no repeat applications and a number of other retail funds which appeared to experience a lower rate of second round demand than some of their industry funds peers.
Colonial First State has so far registered 19,619 second round applications while BT Funds Management recorded 39,488.
Superannuation fund executives have told Money Management that while there was a surge in second round applications in the first week of July, this appeared to have flattened out.
They noted, however, the likelihood of a third surge tied to the Government’s changes to JobKeeper and JobSeeker arrangements.
Super funds had a “tremendous month” in November, according to new data.
Australia faces a decade of deficits, with the sum of deficits over the next four years expected to overshoot forecasts by $21.8 billion.
APRA has raised an alarm about gaps in how superannuation trustees are managing the risks associated with unlisted assets, after releasing the findings of its latest review.
Compared to how funds were allocated to March this year, industry super funds have slightly decreased their allocation to infrastructure in the six months to September – dropping from 11 per cent to 10.6 per cent, according to the latest APRA data.