It should have been no surprise to HESTA members when, on Saturday 19 April, they found themselves unable to log in to their app. After all, the fund told them, back in February, that this would happen.
But some are surprised – and concerned.
The outage is to allow HESTA to transfer its administration from the troubled MUFG to relative newcomer Grow Inc. – the largest technology project in HESTA’s nearly 40-year history. The fund is in a six-week limited–service period and won’t process super contributions, insurance claims, withdrawals or investment switches (they can be made via form, with an effective date for the change as the date received). HESTA will also “consider” making urgent payments when a delay would result in hardship to the member or their beneficiaries
The outage couldn’t have come at a worse time, even if the reasons for that are largely outside of the fund’s control.
A spate of administration failures at Cbus and AustralianSuper has seen the whole sector come under heightened scrutiny, while the co-ordinated cyberattacks earlier this month and the tariff-induced market volatility mean members are paying more attention to their superannuation. They’re opening their HESTA app to check their balance and instead finding a message telling them they can’t.
Confusion reigns online, with members asking why it’s been necessary to take the whole system offline for six weeks.
“I’m with Hesta. First I’ve heard of it and they have my up to date details,” wrote one Reddit user. “SEVEN WEEKS, holy moly, how fucked is their system if they need to go offline for 7 weeks for migration?” wrote another.
That (admittedly small sample) represents a marked change in the tenor of HESTA member sentiment around communications, which has historically been very positive. According to surveys from CoreData, HESTA members feel “very valued” by their fund and the vast majority are satisfied with how it communicates with them.
But this time, instead of choosing to engage with members and the media – and talk through the specifics of the outage – HESTA has mostly chosen to pursue a policy of radio silence while pointing to a significant events notice and a February press release titled “HESTA embarks on significant transformation to enhance member experience”.
That the fund is working to enhance its member experience is in no doubt; what is in doubt are the mechanics of how it is going about that, and why it needs to take its services offline for six weeks to get it done. Investment Magazine understands that it might not be that long – that HESTA’s strategy is to under-promise and overdeliver, with service restored in a shorter period. But the fact that the fund can’t simply promise speaks to the considerable uncertainty that characterises the timelines of projects like these.
And there are other questions. While outages aren’t uncommon across the financial services, with many bank apps regularly taken offline for updates or upgrades, they usually happen in the early hours of the morning, when people are unlikely to be using them. What is the state of HESTA’s systems, or MUFG’s or Grow’s, that the switch can’t be done gradually, in the early AM? Why can’t existing member-facing services be run concurrent with those that have moved to Grow? If members that switch options are effectively being credited with investment returns, where is the money for them coming from? Given the outage is so significant, would it not have behoved the fund to more or less clobber its members with the message that they would be unable to access their superannuation – say, with weekly texts and emails?
All of these questions might have reasonable answers, but those answers aren’t forthcoming – despite repeated attempts to get executives responsible for the project to sit down for a detailed interview.
HESTA’s decision to move its services to Grow was no doubt difficult, for the simple reason that it would probably result in a whole bunch of unhappy members and the publication of opinion pieces like this one. If it truly does result in a “significant transformation” of the member experience than it will have been a far-sighted decision and one that shows Australia’s superannuation industry is not so risk averse as to stick with a crumbling administration status quo.
That doesn’t mean they don’t have to explain it.
This story was edited to reflect the fact that limited services periods can last several weeks in the case of mergers and other transfers.
