National Australia Bank (NAB) has moved to up the ante in the superannuation space by leveraging the structural separation of its insurance business to create Australia's largest retail superannuation fund.
The big banking group has used the structural separation process to effectively consolidate its superannuation trustee arrangements around a single fund — MLC Super Fund.
The company announced that the fund would boast around $70 billion in funds under management (FUM) and would include NAB's existing super offerings — MLC MasterKey and Plum superannuation and pensions.
Discussing the move with Super Review, MLC Wealth Advice executive general manager, Greg Miller, described the process as having amounted to a large simplification of the trustee arrangements around the various superannuation products.
He said the banking group had been progressively informing clients of the changes.
NAB superannuation and investment platforms executive general manager, Paul Carter, said the consolidation of the super fund would, over time, make it easier for customers to move between various products and features with the fund.
The transaction with Nippon Life required the structural separation of the life insurance manufacturing business and the superannuation and investments business. Prior to the consolidation process, there were eight superannuation funds under three trustees.
A major super fund has defended its use of private markets in a submission to ASIC, asserting that appropriate governance and information-sharing practices are present in both public and private markets.
A member body representing some prominent wealth managers is concerned super funds’ dominance is sidelining small companies in capital markets.
Earlier this month, several Australian superannuation funds fell victim to credential stuffing attacks, which saw a small number of members lose more than $500,000.
Small- to medium-sized funds have become collateral damage in an "imperfect" model for super industry levies, a financial institution has said.
So what says Silkie; mine is still bigger than yours.