Early super payments slow to under $200m

According to the latest APRA statistics, super funds made approximately $199 million worth of payments to members in the week to 11 October, meaning the total paid out since the inception of the early release scheme rose to $34.3 billion.

Funds made payments to 28,000 members over the course of the week, according to the regulator.

At the same time, funds received 26,000 applications in the week to 11 October, of which 16,000 were initial applications and 9,000 were repeat applications.

Approximately 1.3 million people have now applied for both early release payments, while 3.3 million have applied for just one payment from their super.

The data follows a trend of slowing release numbers, with $241 million paid out of the super system the previous week, down significantly from $400-$500 million a week two months ago.

It also follows the announcement of a slightly lower than expected national unemployment rate last week, with unemployment rising to 6.9 per cent, below the forecast rate of 7 per cent.