Industry super funds increased their lead over retail funds based on member satisfaction over the last 12 months, according to the latest Roy Morgan Research results.
In May 2019, industry funds scored a 62.5 per cent satisfaction rating with financial performance, well above retail funds with 56.5 per cent.
This latest lead in satisfaction for industry funds of 6.0 per cent points is an increase from the 1.8 per cent points lead they held 12 months ago.
The best performer across all major industry and retail was Unisuper with 70.9 per cent, closely followed by Tasplan on 69.6 per cent.
The latest data in the Satisfaction with Financial Performance of Superannuation report is based on interviews conducted in the six months to May 2019.
The average member satisfaction of 56.5 per cent for retail funds represents a decrease of 3.7 per cent from the same period 12 months ago when satisfaction was 60.2 per cent.
Over the same period, industry funds improved by 0.5 per cent from 62.0 per cent in 2018 to 62.5 per cent in 2019.
One of the big items that could have resulted in such an enormous swing during this period would be the publication of the Banking Royal Commission report.
In May 2019, 10 of the top 12 performing retail and industry funds, based on member satisfaction with their financial performance, were industry funds, and the highest rating was for Unisuper with 70.9 per cent, followed by Tasplan on 69.6 per cent.
The only two retail funds to make it to the top 12 were Macquarie with 66.6 per cent and Mercer on 64.3 per cent.
The top 12 are by no means a uniform group, ranging from 70.9 per cent member satisfaction down to only 58.2 per cent for Sunsuper.
The lowest satisfaction for major super funds beyond the 12 best performers were the AMP (49.3 per cent), ASGARD (50.9 per cent) and BT (52.2 per cent).
Roy Morgan’s communications director Norman Morris said that how members felt about the performance of their fund was sometimes more important than performance tables, where figures can often be confusing.
“The overall assessment of satisfaction with financial performance by fund members clearly ranks the industry funds ahead of retail funds similar to the rankings given on performance tables,” Mr Morris said.
“This survey, however, has the added advantage of being able to understand the members behind the ratings rather than simply ranking the performance of the funds.”
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