Welcome to the latest issue of the KHQ Super Alert. The opening statements from APRA and ASIC have been released for the Senate Economics Legislation Committee’s inquiry into the Your Future, Your Super reforms. ASIC has also issued a reminder to trustees in relation to its IDR expectations.
APRA and ASIC – Your Future, Your Super Senate inquiry
On 7 and 8 April 2021, the Senate Economics Legislation Committee held public hearings in relation to its inquiry into the Your Future, Your Super reforms. The transcripts for these hearings are now available at the link below.
APRA and ASIC published opening statements made by their representatives at the hearing. A range of other people speaking on behalf of representative bodies or funds also gave evidence before the Committee.
APRA published Deputy Chair Helen Rowell’s opening statement. Ms Rowell’s comments included:
- ‘APRA supports the Government’s Your Future, Your Super reforms. In particular, clear benchmarks, with consequences should they not be met, will sharpen and strengthen the work APRA is doing to protect and improve outcomes for superannuation members’; and
- ‘[a]mending the best interests duty to be the best financial interests duty, and increasing transparency of trustee expenditure, will sharpen trustees’ current obligations and will leverage the enhanced reporting requirements that APRA has been working to implement’.
ASIC published Chair James Shipton’s opening statement which welcomed the reforms as a way to ‘enable ASIC to play a more effective role in regulating conduct of superannuation trustees’.
Click here, here and here for details.
ASIC – Internal dispute resolution expectations
On 6 April 2021, ASIC published an article in relation to its expectations for the enhanced internal dispute resolution requirements which will be effective on 5 October 2021. The article, written by Jane Eccleston Senior Executive Leader for Superannuation, provides the following reminders to trustees:
- ‘the standards in RG 271 will likely require trustees to thoroughly review existing processes, systems and resources, so trustees should turn their attention to this work now’;
- when responding to member complains, ASIC expects that in the response:
- ‘the issues the complainant has raised have been identified and addressed’
- ‘the response is tailored and includes facts that support the findings’; and
- ‘sufficiently detailed reasons are given which are proportionate to the complexity of the complaint so that the complainant can understand the decision’;
- ‘the new IDR standards may require trustees to invest in skilled staff and systems’; and
- ASIC expects trustees ‘to regularly analyse complaints datasets and to escalate any possible systemic issues to the appropriate areas for investigation’.
Click here for details.
Legislation – ‘Reuniting More Superannuation’ regulations registered
On 1 April 2021, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Reuniting More Superannuation) Regulations 2021 were registered on the Federal Register of Legislation. The regulations relate to the recently passed Treasury Laws Amendment (Reuniting More Superannuation) Act 2021 and set out that trustees are no longer required ‘to transfer certain amounts to eligible rollover funds’. In addition, the regulations enable the ATO to ‘pay interest on amounts the [ATO] receives from eligible rollover funds or other voluntary payments received from [trustees]’.
Click here for details.
