Under s29QB of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993 (SIS Act), each superannuation fund must disclose TI on a website and keep it up-to-date at all times.
Representing 15 per cent of the trustee population, 21 super funds were identified as failing to meet the TI requirements. Two of the funds had assets exceeding $10 billion, while the rest were smaller funds.
TI comprises executive remuneration disclosure and other information about the super fund’s governance, and must be publicly available on each super fund’s website.
Information such as the trustee directors’ remuneration for the last two financial years, fund trust deeds and product disclosure statements, a summary of significant event notices sent to fund members in the last two years and a summary of how the trustee voted in the last financial year in relation to listed shares held by the fund are some examples of TI requirements.
ASIC deputy chairman Peter Kell said the economic significance of superannuation meant that information about the superannuation industry should be transparent, both for fund members and gatekeepers such as analysts, advisers and journalists.
“ASIC’s expectation is that super fund websites should be easily found by searching on the fund’s name using an internet search engine and that the website homepage should prominently point to the transparency information,” Mr Kell said.
Of the 21, 10 funds had no super fund website, four funds had no TI on their website, five funds had no remuneration information and two funds had remuneration disclosed in bands, rather than for each individual executive officer.
As a result of ASIC’s intervention, seven trustees disclosed the required information, five made it easier to find the information and trustees of two small funds, which did not have websites, sought relief from TI obligations, despite ASIC being unable to grant relief for breaches that have already occurred.
Seven trustees transferred fund members to another fund before winding up the fund, while two trustees improved their procedures for ensuring that TI is up-to-date.
This is a paltry joke. ASIC is simply pretending to be impartial by this pathetic limp slap on the wrist to the ISA sector, while we have all heard of the enormous fees paid to Union ‘consultants’ and other interesting financial ‘reporting’ making their funds opaque, not transparent. Get real ASIC when are you going to make it a level field regarding all aspects of fees, ownership, financial data, fund asset valuations and reporting formats, asset allocation terminology, and ultimately trustees acting solely in the members’ benefit? Farcical attempt to politically pretend to not be biased.
Come on ASIC, super fund members aren’t particularly interested in how much directors of super funds get paid, unless it’s outrageous such as some of the salaries at Australian super. What members cannot easily locate in so-called PDSs are things like the fact that there is a TAX on a TPD lump sum payment; that the owner of the policy is the Trustee and not the member; that the Trustee has ultimate discretion to change the terms and conditions of life/ TPD and income protection any time they choose. Members, when appropriately advised, are amazed to find that the table well inside the insurance brochure showing their default cover shows the sum insureds decreasing from age 30 to 65, but there is no text explaining that critical issue. There is not a mention of the “at work rule” ( FSC Circular 75) which catches out a lot of casual workers whose employers put them in super funds at a timing of the employers choice.
Some funds are better than others at providing information to members and advisers. Last night I had cause to look at the REST website and was amazed to find I could not get any information on insurance from the website, as REST has chosen to direct members to a 1300 number and I expect they won’t take calls from advisers, when I finally ring them