Opening up early access to super for housing would have a negative effect on the balances of even those members that don’t dig into their savings, with funds forced to adopt more conservative investment strategies and hold more liquid assets.
The circa $88 billion industry fund for workers in health and community services reckons that alleviating the affordable housing crisis will boost its other investments by easing the cost of living and inflation.
FNZ’s new CEO for Australasia
Pictured: Marshall Stephen
Global systems provider FNZ has appointed Marshall Stephen as its new chief executive for Australia and New Zealand following the return to the UK of former Australasian boss Martin Jennings.
Stephen, who has been involved in developing master funds and wraps since the early 1990s, starting with the Summit master fund of the former National Mutual, was most recently the chief information officer at MLC/Nab Wealth.
“My background is in technology and operations but always closely aligned to the business” he said. “I was attracted to FNZ by the uniqueness of its offering and the power of the technology. At MLC/Nab Wealth I had the opportunity to study a lot of systems around the world and I could see how compelling FNZ’s solution was compared with others.”
He said there was a big opportunity in the Australian industry to clean up a lot of the legacy systems which were still being used by many financial institutions.
“I think one of FNZ’s abilities is to help refine organisations and streamline their businesses end to end” Stephen said.
“Technology will not always be the solution but it can transform operations when used strategically”
FNZ, which started in Wellington, New Zealand, has offices in the UK (London, Bristol and Edinburgh), Australia (Sydney and Melbourne) and in the Czech Republic (Brno). FNZ opened a Singapore office this year. FNZ now has in excess of 850 employees and around $80 billion in retail administration. The company is about 35 per cent owned by employees with the remainder owned by two private equity firms.
Stephen says the offices reflected the growth needs of the clients, most of which were looking to expand internationally.
Stephen reports to group chief executive Adrian Durham who is based in London. Martin Jennings has taken on the role as CEO of FNZ in the UK.
