BT Financial Group head of product, superannuation, Julie Slapp, says superannuation funds must work harder to provide their members with tailored and personalised advice to enable them to make informed decisions.

Slapp says members already have a great deal of access to a wide range of information; however, their expectations are changing as they look for specific tips and advice.

“No doubt, this change in members’ expectations has been empowered by the internet, digital innovation, mobile technology and social networking, with the expectations for responsive, personalised service and real-time capabilities,” Slapp says. “Through detailed mapping of our customers’ experience from the beginning of their super journey all the way into post-retirement, we are ensuring we can help them at every stage of life. We feel confident that we are in a good place to respond to customers’ evolving needs and expectations.”

She says BT Super has been working towards creating “a digitally enabled customer experience”, that is able to respond to the changing needs of members now and in the future.

Furthermore, she says the fund will be using its award-winning wealth-management platform, BT Panorama, to give members greater flexibility.

“We are looking at ways to provide members the opportunity to be more hands-on if they choose and to provide options for members at different life stages,” Slapp says.

In 2017, BT Super introduced SuperCheck, a search tool for members to find their lost or forgotten super. Slapp says this simple search process has helped more than 170,000 members find their super.

“SuperCheck is an example of giving members simple ways to stay on top of their super,” she explains. “In a few clicks and in just minutes, members [can be] reunited with retirement savings that they didn’t know about, or had simply forgotten about.”

BT Super is part of BT Financial Group, the wealth-management division of the Westpac Group. It has $6.5 billion in retail funds under management, invested on behalf of 506,000 customers.