BT fined over misleading super claims

BT Funds Management has paid a $20,400 fine to ASIC after it published two misleading claims for BT Super online. In one publication that was live from June 26 to September 18 2014, it claimed BT Super had outperformed industry super funds over five years. ASIC said it was concerned the public would perceive that … Read more

Using data to tailor insurance

Insurance products are becoming a tool which super funds are using to differentiate themselves and increase their relevance to members, as the concept of providing averaged group insurance cover across a fund’s membership is supplanted by products tailored to the individual. However, the use of big data, or the lack of it, in the creation … Read more

Five retirement fallacies exposed

The use of online planning tools with stochastic models has exposed the wide variety of income and investment options individuals can take in retirement. When applied to the rules of thumb commonly used in retirement, these tools are starting to show that many of our hunches and biases for how we should save, spend and … Read more

The boutique premium

Boutique investment managers have consistently outperformed over the past two decades, delivering significant value when compared to primary indices, a study by the Affiliated Managers Group (AMG) claims. Based on the results from the study, the average boutique outperformed the average non-boutique in 9 of 11 equity product categories, by an average annual 51 basis points. … Read more

What the industry told Hockey

Industry bodies have made public the key positions of their submissions to the Government’s Tax White Paper; commons themes include a lifetime cap on tax concessions, not change to the dividend imputation system, taking the whole system into account (alongside the Age Pension) and the cessation of tinkering as it is destroying confidence. The Treasurer … Read more

Challenger enters pole position for CIPR

Link Group has signed a strategic alliance with Challenger to make annuity products more easily accessible to members, in one of Link’s first moves to use its new found scale to benefit clients. Link Group’s Australian Administration Services (AAS) has pledged to make guaranteed retirement income products available on its contemporary aaspire administrative platform by … Read more

Book review – The Death of Money

Malinvestment is a term I cannot recall hearing in our industry, but US author James Rickards refers to it frequently in his new book, the dramatically titled, The Death of Money – the coming collapse of the international monetary system. The book sketches out apocalyptic scenarios around further bank collapses, the failure of QE, the … Read more

Rethinking retiree investment risks

Some of the leading thinkers in superannuation investing met up in Melbourne with two representatives of Wellington Management to discuss how good the industry is at investing for retirement. They were set five questions to answer. What does your retirement offering look like and how much do you expect to evolve? It is rare to … Read more

Super CEOs in vanguard of leadership change

Superannuation fund chief executives are in the vanguard of a sea change in business leadership that prioritises values, believes an international business mentor. Anthony Howard, an author and a confidant to leaders in large publicly traded companies in Australia and abroad, will be speaking at FEAL’s annual conference in Melbourne on August 6, on how … Read more

VicSuper gets into bed with Challenger

VicSuper claims to have launched Australia’s first ever public offer comprehensive income product for retirement (CIPR) in partnership with annuity provider Challenger. The offer combines a pension product created by VicSuper’s in-house team with a flexible guaranteed fixed income product from Challenger created after feedback from VicSuper members. VicSuper currently has 20 per cent of … Read more

Progress on super for Indigenous peoples

Three streams need to be developed if superfunds are to better engage with Indigenous peoples on superannuation issues. These streams focus are: connecting to traditional knowledge; building elders’ capabilities; and using the language of caring. Dr Vinita Godinho, managing director of Financial Resilience Australia, gave these recommendations at the Indigenous Super Summit in Melbourne last … Read more

Quality factor explained by profitability: Robert Novy-Marx

Among academic classifications, and the subsequent implementation of factor investing, “quality” is one of the newer areas of investigation. Robert Novy-Marx, the Lori and Alan S. Zekelman Professor of Finance at the University of Rochester, is leading the charge on the academic justification of quality as a factor, although he has a “jaded scepticism” about … Read more