AustralianSuper will roll out digital financial advice options to its 3.6 million members from the second half of this year after securing a tie-up with the digital advice provider Ignition Advice.

AustralianSuper general manager of retirement Shane Hancock tells Investment Magazine that digital advice will “sit alongside our broader advice offer, which includes phone-based advice, face-to-face comprehensive advice and our valued relationships with more than 4500 financial advisers across Australia”.

The $410 billion AustralianSuper will work with Ignition to start rolling out digital advice options for the fund’s 3.6 million members in the second half of this year, and it aims to make digital advice journeys available to members in the 2026/27 financial year. 

“We want all members to feel empowered, informed and excited about their retirements, and this is a key step to delivering that,” Hancock says.

“Getting quality financial advice and guidance makes a real difference to the confidence members feel about their retirement. 

“We’re excited to bring digital advice to members in an accessible way, taking them on a journey to a better understanding of their financial position and future.”

Digital tools are making increasingly deep inroads into the offers of super funds as they work to extend access to advice, even as the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes (DBFO) reforms remain in limbo.

These reforms would see the creation of the so-called new class of adviser as a means of bridging the advice gap between information, guidance and intrafund advice on the one hand, and comprehensive advice on the other.

The increasingly urgent push by super funds to deliver more advice more cost-effectively to more members is driven in large part by the precipitous decline in financial adviser numbers, from around 28,000 in late 2018 to about 15,300 today. 

The scarcity of advice has driven the price of advice beyond the reach of the average super fund member, who in any case is rarely in need of the comprehensive services offered by professional advisers.

In an interview in Volume 3 of Retirement Magazine in print, AustralianSuper head of retirement Jacki Ellis, says the fund is building toward delivering personalised guidance to all members by 2035, with digital advice tools forming a critical part of that architecture.

Ellis says preconditions for fully personalised services include integrating advice, data, and service into a coherent member experience. 

“If you don’t have the data joined up in the right way behind the scenes, it can be quite difficult to follow the bouncing ball,” she says.

AustralianSuper has 145,000 members already in retirement but Ellis dismisses the idea that these members and others who retire before 2035 will miss out on the benefits of improved services and products as they are introduced.

“It’s not like when we deliver new innovation… those who retired previously can’t also benefit from that,” Ellis says.

Significant impact of digital

The impact of digital advice is potentially significant. Aware Super’s group executive for member growth, Steve Travis, told Investment Magazine sister publication Retirement Magazine that it would have taken 250 full-time comprehensive advisers to serve the number of members who have used the fund’s digital tool to date, even before it has been made accessible to the fund’s full membership.

The $210 billion fund’s Retirement Manager tool, built in conjunction with fintech firm Bravura Solutions, lets members work through retirement income questions in their own time, with the option to speak to a human adviser at any point. 

The $170 billion UniSuper says it would have needed 18 additional advisers to replicate the volume of statements of advice produced by its digital platform since launch last June. 

That service, also built with Ignition Advice, initially focuses on intrafund investment choices, with plans to extend into contributions, insurance, and pensions. Chief advice officer Andrew Gregory told Investment Magazine sister publication Professional Planner that the digital offering is complementary to, not competing with, the fund’s internal advice channel, which employs 71 advisers. 

“We believe there is a missing middle in both our fund and in society at large, and we have a role to play to provide affordable, accessible advice to that cohort,” Gregory said. 

“How we deal into this missing middle is through the complement of the digital advice proposition. It’s that missing middle now starting to access a solution they wouldn’t normally start to access.”

In October 2024 the $136 billion Colonial First State fund launched a personalised digital advice solution for FirstChoice super members who do not currently have a financial adviser, using Otivo’s platform at a cost of $88 a year, deducted from members’ super accounts. 

But the fund has since switched direction to “an integrated advice offering called Super Advice within the CFS online portal and member app that combines digital tools with the benefits of a professional adviser”. 

A spokesperson for CFS tells Investment Magazine that as part of this service the fund has launched Super Health Check, delivered through a simple and secure digital experience and “designed to give members a clear view of whether they are on track to maximise their superannuation, and how they can get the guidance they need to meet their personal goals”.