Issue 785, 27 November 2020
In this issue:
- Retirement Income Review: ASFA working group
- Your Future, Your Super: consultation on draft legislation
- Cyber Summit
Retirement Income Review: ASFA working group
As reported in ASFA Action issue 784, the Government has now released the final report of the Retirement Income Review.
The report assesses the retirement income system in terms of its adequacy, sustainability, equity and cohesion. It makes a number of observations about the system, and identifies elements of the system where the Review Panel considered reform is warranted. The report does not make specific recommendations.
ASFA is convening a working group to look at some of the potential improvements to the retirement income system raised in the Report – particularly regarding the equity of system.
An initial meeting of the working group will take place on Thursday 3 December 2020, from 2:00-3:30pm, by video conference.
If you would like to be involved in the working group, contact Andrew Craston (Director, Economics) by close of business Tuesday 1 December. Representation is available to corporate members only and we would appreciate if nominations could be limited to one representative or delegate per organisation.
Your Future, Your Super: consultation on draft legislation
The Treasury has released a package of exposure draft legislation to implement the ‘Your Future, Your Super’ reforms announced in the Government’s 2020-21 Budget (see ASFA Action issue 778).
The consultation package contains the following elements:
- Single default account – this will require employers to contribute to an employee’s existing fund, if they have one and do not choose a fund to receive contributions.
- Product performance
- annual performance test – this will require APRA to conduct an annual performance test for MySuper products, and other products as specified in regulations. Trustees will be required to give notice to members when a product fails the test. Where a product has failed the performance test in two consecutive years, the trustee will be prohibited from accepting new beneficiaries into that product. APRA may lift the prohibition if circumstances specified in the regulations are satisfied
- publication on ATO website – the package provides some detail about the basis on which superannuation products will be ranked and published on a website maintained by the ATO.
- Best financial interest duty – this will require superannuation trustees to act in the best financial interests of their members when they undertake the many actions involved in operating a superannuation entity. These actions include incurring day-to-day operational expenditure and investing members’ money, as well as implementing less frequent strategic decisions and incurring discretionary expenditure.
Submissions for this consultation can be made until 24 December 2020.
If you have any feedback you would like ASFA to consider in responding to this consultation, please forward it to Fiona Galbraith by close of business Wednesday 9 December 2020.
Cyber Summit
The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC)—a global cyber intelligence sharing community solely focused on financial services—has offered ASFA members free attendance to its upcoming Asia Pacific summit.
The (virtual) summit, to be held on 1 and 2 December, is free for all cyber security, IT, compliance, regulatory, risk, governance or fraud professionals from the financial services sector.
Interested ASFA members should refer to the agenda and register directly via the link on the FS-ISAC website.
ASFA REGULATORY WATCHLIST
ASFA’s Regulatory Watchlist (ARW) tracks developments in Legislation, inquiries, consultations
and other regulatory announcements relevant to superannuation.