Retail funds lead super-related complaints

The bulk of superannuation-related disputes lodged with the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) were about retail funds and self-managed super funds (SMSFs).

The annual report published by FOS showed a 9 per cent drop in the number of superannuation-related disputes it accepted in the 2012-13 financial year, with retail funds and SMSFs together making up almost 80 per cent of all super-related complaints.

"People who lodged disputes about self-managed funds were most likely to complain about inappropriate advice (38 per cent)," the report said.

"Common issues in disputes about retail funds were inappropriate advice (20 per cent) and failure to follow instruction (15 per cent)."

VIEW ALL

View all

Financial advice is still the main cause of almost all investment-related complaints.

Managed investment products also attracted complaints on advice, with more than half saying it did not concur with their financial position, goals and tolerance risk.

"The majority (62 per cent) of managed investment disputes involved a financial advisor/planner or a managed investment scheme operator/fund manager (27 per cent)," the report said.

However, the report noted a steady decline in the number of accepted disputes in most investment categories since 2010-11.

It said this could be because consumers who sustained major losses during the global financial crisis have probably had their disputes resolved by now.