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.
Governance, transparency and pension funds
Big pension funds often rail about the governance of the companies they invest in. But what about their own? Benjie Fraser, a governance expert, focuses on Asia Pacific funds compared with European ones at the IO&C Conference in Shanghai, April 29-30.
Fraser, a managing director of JP Morgan Worldwide Securities Services, Europe, says: “The Global pensions are underpinned by a mixture of serious reform and continued policy debate.
“Globally, perhaps, there are two worlds: a world where adequate savings is viewed as mandatory and a world where saving enough is still a matter of coercion.With a rapidly ageing world these two ways of operating a system fit-for-purpose are likely to evolve and increasingly share best practice.
“In the meantime what is clear is that pensions are creating a confluence of interests around structures, governance and trends.”
- Confluence of Trends and Reforms
Fraser says: “The outcome we are already seeing is a move towards far greater transparency in the way the industry runs itself.”
