Superannuation fund executives said that the 5% marker for members who had totally emptied their accounts was typical across many of the funds dealing with early release.
The latest APRA data confirmed that REST was among the top 10 funds impacted by the early release scheme which on their own accounted $24.2 billion of the total $36.8 billion withdrawn under the arrangements.
The APRA data revealed the most affected funds as being:
AustralianSuper which saw 648,518 members withdraw nearly $5 billion;
Cbus which saw 276,634 members withdraw $2.3 billion;
HESTA which saw 227,020 members withdraw $1.8 billion;
Hostplus which saw 426,015 members withdraw just over $3 billion;
MLC Super which saw 170,565 members withdraw $1.3 billion;
NULIS, which covers the MLC Super Fund (MSF), the MLC Superannuation Fund (MLCSF), the DPM Retirement Service (DPMRS), and the PremiumChoice Retirement Service reflected the broad industry vierw when it stated: The reduction in cost of transferring funds was offset by the high cost of implementing SuperStream”.
It said that NULIS had “implemented a number of fee reductions over time, which have taken into consideration cost efficiencies from simplification of products, systems and processes”.
The chairman of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, Liberal backbencher, Tim Wilson, had asked the funds whether “since the introduction of Superstream, which has standardised the transfer of funds, has there been:
Agriculture, manufacturers and other exporters could suffer if the Australian dollar continues to push through two-year highs against the US and strengthen against other currencies off the back of soaring commodity prices.
Faced with this predicament, ASIC actually canvassed having the Remuneration Tribunal make a retrospective determination to cover Crennan’s circumstances
The documentation also notes that the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) raised serious questions about the nature of the arrangement as early as August, last year, and specifically mentioned that the arrangements should only apply to “team members” and that “past examples demonstrated that ASIC had previously only approved reimbursement of one-off costs associated with the relocation of commission members, rather than providing “ongoing” rental assistance.
The ASIC documentation, filed as part of its response to questions raised by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics reveals that Crennan was asked to relocate from Sydney to Melbourne because of the resignation of former ASIC deputy chair, Peter Kell, and that as part of the arrangement he was being provided with a rental allowance o
Answering a question on notice from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services, ASIC spelled out its approach stating that before it actually exercised its compulsory information gathering powers it was examining publicly available information, including written answers provided by superannuation funds.
“We have been examining publicly available information, including the written answers provided by superannuation funds to the House of Representatives Economics Committee concerning switching activity by trustees and senior executives following unlisted asset revaluations, and the funds’ conflict management policies,” ASIC said.
“The information provided by funds to the Committee is helping inform ASIC’s further investigations.”