Ditch bank-owned super funds

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Again, the stats are in and again – even with a nicely worded press release from the industry super lobby repopped at IFA – you’re nuts to keep your superannuation with a bank-owned fund.

SuperRatings data states that over a rolling 10-year period industry super funds returned members 6.13 per cent, while retail funds returned 4.10 per cent.

On a shorter timeframe, industry funds outperformed bank-owned super funds by 2.11 per cent, 2.24 per cent and 1.96 per cent over one, three and five-year periods respectively.

Industry Super Australia is right to be quite vocal about the governments support for their ticket clipping bank funds, as the fight to reduce self managed super at industry expense too ramps up.

Beyond the taxation reform that is needed urgently in one of the biggest rorts of our time, the next biggest – the circa $20 billion per annum in fees the “professional” funds industry collects for doing two/fifths of sweet f$ck all, also needs solving.

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There is no hard answer as running your own fund is out of the realm for most savers. Going to a low fee industry fund and having most of your savings in cash and bonds with less than 30% in stocks (rising in bullish conditions, falling in bearish conditions – easily ascertained by “amateurs”) will mean you will be almost always in front compared with leaving it with Megabank and their “advisers”.