At a hearing of the committee on Wednesday, Liberal MP Tim Wilson questioned ASIC commissioner Danielle Press around the use of Google AdWords that related to the retail super sector by industry funds, which could potentially be construed as misleading to consumers.
“We have made a series of questions on notice to super funds who have refused to provide evidence of the AdWords they have purchased, and we have evidence of them committing that type of conduct that we expect ASIC to review,” Mr Wilson said.
Ms Press conceded that ASIC had issued a penalty notice of around $20,000 to BT in 2015 for misleading advertising, relating to its purchasing of AdWords including “industry super Australia”.
At the time, the regulator said such advertising could mislead consumers into thinking BT was affiliated with the industry fund sector.
Documentation received by Mr Wilson and seen by ifa reveals both Hesta and Australian Super have previously purchased AdWords based on the search terms “retail super transfer”.
Mr Wilson, who heads the House standing committee on economics, told ifa that “until [the committee] started asking questions a few months ago” the two funds had been running advertising based on these search terms, “and many industry funds have refused to answer questions on notice on these matters”.
Responding to further questions from Mr Wilson around the matter in the committee hearing, Ms Press said she was “not aware” of the funds using advertising terms relating to retail super.
“We would certainly look at that if we were provided with evidence of misleading advertising,” she said.
While they’re at it, they should probe AusSuper about their Qantas Frequent Flyer points when signing up for a new fund
yep, this is the biggest issue in the whole super industry. Don’t worry about fee for no service from the retail funds or industry funds misrepresenting what their clients are really invested in or the fact that most aligned advisers can only recommend a small number of funds (many of which pay to be part of the offering) or the crazy amount of red tape involved with anything to do with super……..
I just googled retail super funds and not one retail fund comes up. also canstar ad comes up some of the larger wll know industry funds you might have heard of include then lists every industry fund you just can’t make this stuff up ASIC has been hijacked by old industry fund employees put to task to take out financial planners and get bonuses doing so
Retail Super Funds
Unlike Industry SuperFunds, retail funds (run by banks and insurance companies) help generate corporate profits, which are returned as dividends to shareholders, not superannuation policyholders. The big banks are behind some of the big retail super funds, for example: BT Super (Westpac)
Industry Or Retail Superannuation Funds? » Industry Superwww.industrysuper.com › Compare
I think people are missing the bigger picture. This isn’t about Google AdWords. This is about ASIC’s systemic bias in favour of union funds.
Congratulations Tim Wilson for finally shining a light on this problem that has been going on for years.
Agree. The fact they fined BT for using specific terms in Google Adwords is beyond belief. That is a bit like saying they can only advertise on TV at a certain time.
What Industry Super can do what ever they like and ASIC best buddies, left wing ideologists will do nothing ever to hurt each other.
The industry fund sector is far from innocent. I have seen marketing by one which calls the return “above the average for industry funds” (details of the sample unknown) as “outperformance”. Even if the relevant return is above the average, if below the market return (on an asset allocation weighted basis) this is “underperformance”.
Tim Wilson once again showing his mindless bent against industry funds. Them purchasing the adwords ‘retail super transfer’ (i.e. showing google results when a person has searched for ‘retail super transfer’ meaning they’re looking to transfer out of their retail fund), is not even remotely similar to a retail fund purchasing the adwords ‘industry super australia’. What an incompetent, biased and unfit person to chair that economics committee.
Of course Industry Super never do a thing wrong and even when they do ASIC will never pull them up. Cosy best buddies.
AP, I am more likely to recommend Industry funds over retail but I disagree with this. ASIC should not be fining either Industry funds or retail funds for paying for Google Adwords search terms. This is over reach by ASIC.
Tim Wilson is only interested in assisting his uncle to keep FUM in his LIC / Funds Management business.
Tim Wilson loves to help rubbish fundies rip off everyday Australians. It’s his forte! There’s nothing wrong with a search for “retail super transfer”. That’s very different to a crap retail fund pretending to be a high-return industry fund.
It doesn’t look good that they refused to provide the terms purchased. If you have nothing to hide or you think you are acting ethically why would you play the dead bat to a simple question?
Why are they ‘high-returning’…? “Oh, because the ads tell me so”. There are plenty of higher-returning super funds around, especially if asset allocation isn’t a consideration.
Interested to know what your preferred super funds are. From my research none of the retail funds actively managed investment options beat similar index options.
Over exposure to riskier illiquid assets = high-return industry fund. If you mean transparent and accountable investing equals crap retail fund you have a very strange use of crap.
The industry funds are almost akin to ponzi scheems with how they self assess the value of over 30% of the assets within their investment portfolios (it defies logic that their property investments don’t follow listed or commercial property value declines) That is reckless, as refusing to revalue assets steals wealth from those that stay with the fund and rewards those that redeem (ponzi scheme). Did you not notice they were the only ones complaining about liquidity issues as a result of the Covid early access initiative.
I’m hardly surprised by your comment however, why you would defend their continuing misleading advertising and questionable investment approaches.
Love this comment, Industry funds do not place clients in a better position and definitely over exaggerate their returns. Balanced host Plus index fund is similar to most retail growth index fund options. its all hidden in their ‘alternative’ investment option….. always trying to remove the adviser and cant come up with cash when a majority of their customers want a early release due to COVID-19. cant sell a shopping centre in a pandemic so we will revalue and hurt our members…… trying to block their members accessing their super whilst pretending they are their only for their members….. absolute disgrace and good luck getting things done when dealing with an industry fund, completely incompetent.
Your village wants their idiot back….
most international global managers in retail land have 14% to 15% returns industry funds would are lucky to 11%
I think Tim is seeing that the regulator is having one rule for some and another for others thus the call out
Evidence please.
I think its more like Captain Oblivious…….
Close you eyes and it isn’t there and it never happened.
One set of rules for some, one set for another.
Captain Obvious must obviously be collecting intrafund salaries & bonuses from his beloved Industry Fund (that the retail advisers are banned from receiving).
How is it different?
Interesting I just googled “Best Retail Super Fund” the first add that shows up – CBUS
I just googled Retail Super and first up is REST, then Industry Super in second place. Does Danielle Press not know how to find evidence? Is that what she is saying? Really.
There were 20 investment options that reported in the AFR the other day, that absolutely thrashed the similar asset category of the Default Industry Funds. Let’s not talk about how we can access them through retail platforms. Enough of the cover ups thanks.
Well done, Tim Wilson. Exposing a rather glaring contradiction in how ASIC treats different funds.
Totally agree- if regulators went after the industry and institutional owned funds, AMP, IOOF (no coincidence they follow each other in the list) etc, they would clean up the industry for good and be kept busy for the next 5 years.
I don’t disagree, but doesn’t this cover nearly all super funds………