According to the latest APRA data, 2.3 million ATO-approved applications have now been received by the funds, for a total of $16.9 billion.
The funds have paid out 2.1 million of the claims.
The average payment was $7,468.
Over the week to 14 June, the funds made payments totalling $1.3 billion to 148,000 members.
The 10 funds with the highest number of applications received from the ATO have made 1.42 million payments, worth a total of $10.46 billion – covering 65 per cent of the amount claimed under the scheme.
AustralianSuper topped the payouts, having paid 284,985 claims totalling $2.1 billion. Sunsuper followed, with 226,189 payments completed for a total of $1.5 billion and Hostplus paid $1.4 billion across 212,972 claims.
REST had paid out $1.4 billion, Cbus had given $907.3 million, HESTA $758.3 million, BT Funds’ Retirement Wrap $743.7 million, MLC Super Fund $557.2 million, OnePath’s Retirement Portfolio Service $497.4 million and Colonial First State Investments’ Commonwealth Essential Super $358.7 million.
The average payment from the 10 funds was $7,372, with more than 96 per cent of the payments made within five days.
Across the sector, the funds have taken 3.3 business days to pay out the applications on average, with 95 per cent of the applications being paid within five working days.
How are the big funds finding the cash? Are they selling down unlisted properties, or preferring to hold them at the moment as they may be over-valued on their books? Are they borrowing the money? Are they selling down defensive assets such as bonds, as these have not been reduced in value? If it’s the latter, then are their balanced funds still balanced, or are investors exposed to a higher risk fund than they signed up for?
You can expect this figure to double when the new financial year kicks in.
Not quite. I reckon about $12B for FY21. Many young and low income clients will have already emptied their accounts completely. That’s why the average withdrawal has been less than $10K. It’s due to low balance clients withdrawing everything they had in super, which in many cases was less than $10K. Those who started with $10-20K balances will have taken $10K in the first round, and will be coming back in July to empty out the rest.
The govt will claim that a reduced withdrawal total in FY21 reflects their success in managing the economic impact. The super funds will claim it reflects success in educating members about the consequences of early withdrawal. But it will actually be due to people not having the maximum allowable $20K available to withdraw.