The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has acknowledged gaps in its data collection processes, particularly where sub-funds within superannuation funds are concerned.
Giving evidence before the Senate Economic Committee, APRA member John Trowbridge pointed to the fact that the current changes to fund data collection being undertaken by the regulator represented “the first renovation of this collection since 2003”, and noted that the industry had moved a long way since then.
“For example, we are looking at collecting material on sub-funds,” Trowbridge said. “Currently, we do not hold that.
“Essentially, that is a hole on our prudential radar whereby we do not know which sub-funds might be underfunded,” he said.
Trowbridge added that in APRA’s current collection there was also “some fuzziness in hybrid funds – the split between defined benefit and defined contribution – which we would really like to sharpen up”.
He said the other largest issue was that APRA was proposing to “switch the balance sheet collection from something that, frankly, is obsolete to something that is more modern in terms of asset class breakdown”.
