POWERED BY MOMENTUM MEDIA
SCT urges trustees to try harder to resolve complaints
The chair of the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal (SCT), Jocelyn Furlan, has urged superannuation funds not to wait until a matter is actually referred to the tribunal before seeking to find ways of resolving issues.
Furlan has used the SCT’s latest quarterly newsletter to urge superannuation funds to attempt to resolve disputes with members before they are actually escalated to the SCT.
She noted that in the last financial year the SCT had conducted 424 conciliation conferences and that for the first six months of the current financial year it had experienced an 89 per cent increase, conducting 359 conferences.
“The Tribunal considers conciliation is the most cost-effective and efficient way of resolving complaints and is under a statutory obligation to try and resolve complaints within its jurisdiction by conciliation,” Furlan said.
However she said that in some cases fund trustees and insurers were not “still not adequately prepared for the conciliation conference and an increasing number of conciliation conferences have to be adjourned in order for the trustee or insurer representative to obtain further instructions and/or seek approval from the business area before making an offer to resolve the complaint”.
Furlan said that trustees and insurers needed to ensure that their representatives had the authority to resolve the complaint.
Recommended for you
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.
TOP PERFORMING FUNDS
ACS FIXED INT - AUSTRALIA/GLOBAL BOND
Fund name
3y(%)pa
1
DomaCom DFS Mortgage
93.34 3 y p.a(%)
2
Global X GlobalX FANG+ ETF
37.15 3 y p.a(%)
3
GAM LSA Private Shares AU I
33.96 3 y p.a(%)
4
Fidante Credit Suisse Global Private Equity
29.68 3 y p.a(%)
5
Plato Global Alpha A
28.73 3 y p.a(%)
