Some super funds have incurred the displeasure of the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) by putting links to their product dashboard in unobtrusive positions on their website.
The product dashboard provides members with five essential facts on their Mysuper fund; the return target, actual returns, a comparison with previous returns, the level of investment risk and the fee.
The placement of links to this information has been one of two areas of concern for Greg Tanzer, commissioner at ASIC.
“We were noticing for some funds that website disclosure was not being put in a very prominent place,” he said. “For this to work we are keen that it should be as prominent as possible.”
Another concern has been the absence of any mention of past-performance from Mysuper funds that have started from scratch. ASIC wants new funds to inform members that such data will eventually follow.
Tanzer said: “Our preference would be that you should tell why it has been omitted. We would like people not to be surprised when they start seeing this information, the course of information is important to see.”
ASIC is otherwise happy with the information provided on fees and returns. Tanzer said ASIC’s initial assessment was of a “genuine effort” being made to get dashboards ready and that there were no “significant” problems with compliance so far.
He added that any fund which was having technical difficulties in providing the information should inform ASIC straight away.
“We will take a facilitative approach to breaches. So they should tell us and tell us what they are doing to rectify that and give priority to it.”
