Comprehensive testing needed on choice dashboards

The Federal Treasury has been told that funding should be provided for the comprehensive consumer testing of superannuation choice product dashboards.

The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) has worked closely with the Institute of Actuaries on the product dashboard policy changes and has made clear in a submission to Treasury that it believes that significant testing of dashboards needs to take place.

"It is critical that, with each iteration outlining the necessary content for product dashboards, there should be funding for comprehensive consumer testing," the ASFA submission said.

Further, it said "such testing should be performed across a sample of sufficient size as to be statistically meaningful; should test a range of different dashboards and compare them with each other; should test both the content and the format and — most importantly — should test for comprehension, not just for stated preference".

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The submission warned that the Actuaries Institute and ASFA believed there was considerable potential for superannuation fund members to be confused or mislead by the proposed content for choice product dashboards, especially if they investigated investment options or products in more depth by considering information in the product's Product Disclosure Statement (PDS), on the fund's website or in their member statement.

It said that, accordingly, both organisations considered that a number of aspects of the product dashboard aspects of the exposure draft legislation necessitated amendment to ensure that product dashboards were effective and not misleading.