Greg Sword the outgoing chief executive of LUCRF has revealed how his fund is arguably the best prepared in the industry to take advantage of SuperStream changes.
The fund’s Blue Door powered administration system has its own Gateway and clearing house and will offer the service free to all employers that use it when SuperStream launches in July, regardless of whether LUCRF serves as their default fund or not.
This is how he is describing the fund’s message to employers.
“We can take your information and make it SuperStream compliant, we will do that for free because it builds the relationship, even for employers where we might not be the major fund.” He added: “It does not take too long to think that these relationships will lead to additional membership.”
LUCRF has a first-of-its-kind APP that lets employees check on their mobile phones to see if their contributions have been paid, which is likely to make it popular among those who frequently change jobs.
Sword said he was not aware of anyone else in the business who could offer such a service. The fund would ultimately like to closely work with the ATO so that employees can consolidate their accounts with a single phone call. At present it takes the ATO 2-3 days to process the request.
Sword revealed the fund is also building its own member direct platform. One he envisions being used by employees to build up readily accessible savings and a platform that will allow holders of self-managed super funds to access LUCRF investments.
He sees the use of information technology as a game changer in financial services, particularly in competition with the big banks.
“Technology and the internet means that anyone can compete in this space. It allows you to compete in a way you never used to.”
Sword, who was instrumental in campaigning for the creation of universal superannuation contributions in the 1980s on behalf of trade union members and whose fund was created for member of the National Union of Workers, believes the message of modernisation was relevant to unions.
“What matters is a sophisticated operation that has got significant growth. Our footprint as part of union distribution is growing. If unions have intelligent smart leadership they are still very relevant and they are still going to grow. The union movement will discover that truth over time.”
Sword is stepping down from his role as chief executive at the end of June. He is being replaced by Charles Donnelly, currently a director of LUCRF.
Donnelly has been the general secretary of the National Union of Workers for the last ten years and has a bachelor of commerce from the University of Melbourne, a Diploma of Financial Services and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
