ASIC warns on super fee clarity

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has told superannuation fund trustees and executives that members want greater clarity with respect to whether the fees they are paying are high, low or average. 

ASIC senior manager Alex Purvis told this week’s Conference of Major Superannuation Funds (CMSF) on the Gold Coast that superannuation funds needed to be mindful of this in providing information to members by way of product dashboards or other mechanisms. 

She said ASIC’s analysis of consumer feed-back on product dashboards was that members were generally positive but wanted funds to keep the information simple but comparable. 

Purvis said members like the concept of being able to tailor the information they draw down from calculators to determine their relative positions. 

“They like tailoring in relation to fees,” she said. “They like to play in terms of inputting their balance and getting data and knowing whether the fees they are paying are high, low or average,” she said. 

Purvis also noted that some superannuation funds were making their product dashboards too hard to find on their websites and there had been instances where ASIC officers had had to call funds to obtain a link to the information. 

“If members can’t find the information, it’s not a helpful start,” she said.