AustralianSuper has been named the most transparent super fund in Australia and the fourth in the overall Global Pension Transparency Benchmark, scoring 93 out of 100.  

A joint initiative between Investment Magazine sister publication Top1000funds.com and Canadian consultancy CEM Benchmarking, the 2025 edition of the GPTB marks the final instalment of this five-year project, which was established to showcase best practice in the industry and provide a self-improvement framework for fiduciary investors. 

The full assessment consists of 155 questions determining funds’ levels of transparency across the disclosures of cost, governance, performance and responsible investing. This year, the project collected 11,625 data points data points across 15 countries and the five largest pension funds in each jurisdiction.  

This year has proven to be particularly competitive, with three other funds tied with for their transparency score: BCI in Canada, Norway Domestic Fund and CalPERS in the US. 

The $350 billion Australian Retirement Trust came eighth in 2025 with 92 points but improved its score the most across all global funds over the years. When the GPTB began publishing individual fund scores in 2022, QSuper – which later merged with Sunsuper to form Australian Retirement Trust (ART) – was given just 49 points, but the consolidation has prompted the creation of more rigorous public reporting standards. 

The rest of the Australian fund rankings were: UniSuper (18th, 83 points), Aware Super (19th, 80 points) and the Future Fund (27th, 75 points). The Future Fund is one of the three “unique funds” that do not fit into the traditional definition of a pension fund.  

In terms of factor ranking, AustralianSuper ranked the first in governance, which evaluates the disclosure of governance structure and mission, board qualification, compensation and team structure, and organisational strategy.  

But it lagged in cost and responsible investing reporting, ranking only the 14th in both.  

Pension funds were scored on cost in three aspects common to all, including annual and financial report disclosures, asset class disclosures and the completeness of external management fees, and one aspect focused on member service. 

Assessment around responsible investing is the most comprehensive, with 47 questions across three major components: responsible investing framework and reporting; responsible investing governance; and responsible investing implementation. 

Australia, which has more than $4 trillion in its defined contribution pension system, was the biggest mover with an overall country score uplift of 19 points in five years. It is now the second most transparent pension system in the world. 

Lessons from leading funds 

Looking across global leaders, Norway’s $3 trillion Government Pension Fund Global has retained its title as the world’s most transparent fund, scoring a perfect 100 out of 100 for the second year in a row. 

CPP Investments was in second place in 2025, with a score of 97 points and Quebec’s CDPQ displaced CalPERS in third place. 

CEM Benchmarking product manager Edsart Heuberger said that scale, mandates and types of investment holdings are all factors that drive a fund’s transparency ranking. For example, it is more difficult for Canadian funds to achieve a perfect score with their massive private asset books than the Government Pension Fund, which only invests in listed markets, he says. 

There are also external factors like regulation which dictate the types of disclosures funds need to make as a minimum requirement. 

Heuberger says there is a unique dynamic in benchmarking transparency compared to benchmarking fees or performance. 

“What you typically see [in any kind of benchmarking] is that the leaders set a bar, and everyone else follows and gets closer, whereas this benchmark, it was very obvious from the beginning, and the leaders were making the greatest improvements – the laggers were not,” he says. 

That said, 2025 marked the first time an equal number of funds improved their scores in the top and bottom halves of the ranking, showing that public scrutiny continues to translate into industry practice alignment. 

Across all funds, 61 per cent improved their score (compared to 72 per cent last year) and 15 per cent had worse scores. 

In 2025, 19 of the top 20 funds maintained or improved their scores from last year. Sweden’s AP4 was the only fund to slip – down one point and five places – highlighting the fierce competition among leading funds. 

As the project comes to an end, Heuberger encourages funds to keep using the GPTB framework for improving and maintaining a transparent organisation for stakeholders. 

“For the top 10 funds, there is a next echelon of transparency with smaller improvements … but I think there is an upper limit to this,” says Heuberger. 

“A tip for everyone is to just look at the best disclosures in the world, because what some leading funds do is very inspirational for other funds and something to look up to.” 

Explore the full fund and country results here: https://global-pension-transparency-benchmark.top1000funds.com/global-pension-transparency-benchmark