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.
OneVue pushes into member-directed market
(Pictured: Connie Mckeage)
OneVue is still on track for its IPO this year, all being well with the relevant regulators, and is driving further into the industry fund market with its Individually Managed Account (IMA) option.
OneVue chief executive officer, Connie Mckeage, says that members of industry funds which partner with them, will not only be able to choose their direct investments within super – aka the member direct investment options that are currently available through around 25 per cent of industry funds – but will also be able to use OneVue’s IMA options for their entire investment portfolio.
Mckeage was meeting with industry funds last week and hopes to have one or two signed up to the service by the end of the year.
“Industry funds are looking for engagement with their members,” she says.
“We’re never going to compete with them. We are complimentary.”
Mckeage says their main differentiator in this space for industry funds is their consolidated service offering.
“It’s not a disjointed experience. We’ve done enough research to know that clients want to get everything in the one place,” she says.
The preparation for the upcoming IPO has not been as onerous as it could have been, partly because of the due diligence OneVue already undergoes with some of its large global custodians acquired through the purchase of Computershare’s unit registry arm – Computershare Fund Services (CFS) – last year.
“In order to purchase that business [those clients] had to get comfortable with us,” she says.
OneVue has also long been an advocate of the listed fund exchange, formally known as Aqua II, and now known as the mFunds Settlement Service, and is one of 60 foundation partners.
Mckeage says the service should provide a lifeline to, particularly, smaller funds managers that are unable to get large inflows from retail platforms.
“It reacquaints funds managers with their client base…[particularly] for the funds managers that are not seeing the light of day, stuck on around $200 million to $300 million (in funds under management),” she says.
Last week, OneVue beefed up its SMSF capabilities with the purchase of SMSF administration business Super Managers Australia.
The company has now grown to over 120 employees, who are, on a good day, a pleasure to manage, according to Mckeage.
