Clearing houses risk being disadvantaged

The Federal Government needs to ensure that its appointment of Medicare Australia as its approved superannuation clearing house does not unnecessarily disadvantage other companies providing clearing house facilities, according to the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA).

In a submission to the Treasury dealing with the draft legislation that will underpin the new central superannuation clearing house, ASFA warned that the draft legislation created an uneven playing field between the approved (Medicare) clearing house and other providers of clearing house services.

It said other providers were being disadvantaged because payments received by the Medicare clearing house would be treated as if they had been received by a complying fund, and the Medicare clearing house would not be subject to the Corporations Act licensing and disclosure regime.

"ASFA is concerned that the above features, combined with the absence of a limitation on the number of employees that an employer may have and still use the approved clearing house, has the potential to deliver commercial damage to existing providers of clearing house services," the ASFA submission said.

It argued to overcome these problems, the legislation needed to be amended to provide a path via which private sector organisations could achieve approved clearing house status and ensure employers could not use the free service if they had more than 20 employees.