New research from Roy Morgan has confirmed that industry superannuation would be the net winners from the Productivity Commission’s (PC’s) recommendation for a short-list of top-performing funds but has warned such a list needs to take member perceptions into account.
The research, released today, revealed that over the six months to November last year, eight of the top ten performing based in terms of member satisfaction with financial performance were industry funds, led by Catholic Super with 70.5 per cent, followed by UniSuper with 69.7 per cent.
It said the only retail funds to make it into the top 10 were ASGARD with 65.1 per cent and Macquarie with 63.7 per cent.
The Roy Morgan analysis said the top 10 were by no means a uniform group, making it unlikely that all funds in the top 10 would have an equal chance of selection.
It said the five major retail superannuation funds had an average satisfaction rating of 54.7 per cent, compared to the total retail fund average of 57.2 per cent and well below the industry fund average of 61.8 per cent.
“The best performer among the majors was Colonial First State with 60.7 per cent, well ahead of second placed BT (55.6 per cent). The lowest satisfaction among these majors was for AMP with 50.4 per cent and it was in fact the lowest of all the funds reported on in the ‘Superannuation Satisfaction Report’,” the Roy Morgan analysis said.
Commenting on the findings, Roy Morgan industry communications director, Norman Morris said it suggested that fund member ratings of which were the best performing funds should be taken into account as input into determining any Top 10.
“The reason for including what fund members think in assessing the best performers is that they have the final decision on choice of fund, so their opinion counts,” he said.
“An important consideration in determining which funds will be included in the top ten, is that with market fluctuations they are subject to regular changes or re-ranking. This means that consumers may choose the top fund one day only to have it slide down the ranking. We have seen this happen with our satisfaction ratings, where only three funds out of the top ten have remained in this group for the last three years.”
