The Your Future, Your Super legislation should save consumers up to $1.8 billion in fees over the first three years after implementation, according to the Financial Services Council (FSC).
The FSC analysis proved that stapling consumers to a single fund, a change that the FSC had advocated for, would save unnecessary fees which were a result of holding multiple accounts.
FSC’s chief executive, Sally Loane, said the super industry could only justify calls to increase the super guarantee to 12% if the system became more efficient and the Your Future, Your Super reforms had weaknesses around the design of the new benchmarking methodology.
“To be clear, the FSC supports weeding out underperforming funds. Duds need to go, we don’t care if they are run by a profit-making company or a trade union and employer group,” she said.
“However, we want to see some changes to the design of performance benchmarks. The custodians of our superannuation system are responsible for investing $3 trillion in savings and small changes in trustee decision-making can have major ramifications for the allocation of capital in the Australian economy.
“The FSC is also concerned that while funds have been required to set CPI-linked [consumer price index] investment return targets, and have measured themselves against these targets in Government mandated dashboards, they will now be retrospectively assessed against a new benchmark.”
The lower outlook for inflation has set the stage for another two rate cuts over the first half of 2026, according to Westpac.
With private asset valuations emerging as a key concern for both regulators and the broader market, Apollo Global Management has called on the corporate regulator to issue clear principles on valuation practices, including guidance on the disclosures it expects from market participants.
Institutional asset owners are largely rethinking their exposure to the US, with private markets increasingly being viewed as a strategic investment allocation, new research has shown.
Australia’s corporate regulator has been told it must quickly modernise its oversight of private markets, after being caught off guard by the complexity, size, and opacity of the asset class now dominating institutional portfolios.