Rice Warner

Adding a qualitative measure of performance or the right to appeal to YFYS could enhance consumer outcomes. But critics have warned that it could defang the test.

The quality of advice review opens the door for super funds to become a one stop shop for their members’ financial advice needs. But keeping things simple is key.

By 2041, Australia’s super funds will swell to enormous size. How they invest our retirement savings will become an even trickier prospect. Over the next 20 years, the superannuation system will grow to a colossal size – an estimated $9.2 trillion, or 206 per cent of its current size, according to a report from Deloitte’s…

Magellan Financial Group’s ‘FuturePay’, launched with a fanfare last week (June 1) after considerable pre-launch publicity, heralds an escalation in a retirement products arms race. Both big super funds and fund managers are scrambling for positions in the race, which is expected to have strong demographically driven growth for years to come. Magellan, arguably the…

KPMG believes $50 billion is about the minimum size for an APRA-regulated fund when the dust settles. Helen Rowell, the retiring deputy chair of APRA, believes it should be $30 billion. The figures were bandied about at the CMSF conference where mergers were discussed in some detail. Leeanne Turner, who has just been through one…

The Actuaries Institute has suggested three main initiatives to help address the gender gap in retirement in a study prepared to coincide with the current ‘2021 All Actuaries Virtual Summit’. The report by a group of prominent actuaries and super specialists, tackles the decades-old issue of women retiring with less money than men from a…

Michael Rice officially entered the wind-down period of his career last Friday (April 30) with the completion of the sale of Rice Warner, now to be known as Deloitte Superannuation. All but a handful of administrative staff transferred, moving out of the heritage-listed 2 Martin Place office, around the corner and a few hundred metres…

If APRA wants to continue to encourage super fund mergers the regulator needs to make some changes to how it goes about its approvals process, according to one chief executive who is going through the process of having a successor fund transfer (TFR). Speaking at last weeks’ annual ASFA conference (on February 11), Leeanne Turner,…

The decline in the total number of qualified financial advisers accelerated towards the end of last year, at a time when the Government and advice industry itself are grappling to produce more affordable advice for the general population. The December quarter’s report from Adviser Ratings, published last week (February 3), indicates an industry sector approaching…

The debate about whether compulsory employer superannuation contributions should be increased from the current level of 9.5 per cent is constantly simmering, waiting for the next opportunity to boil over.