Audited performance data provided to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has revealed that the biggest superannuation fund operated by each of Australia’s four major banks, along with the largest super funds operated by AMP and IOOF, yielded total average annual returns of 2.1% to 3.1% cent in the decade to 30 June 2017. This was well below the average annual return of 3.8% delivered by “risk-free” cash investments over the same period. By contrast, the six largest industry super funds yielded around double the returns achieved by the biggest retail funds. From The Australian:
The returns on those [retail] super accounts over the past decade have been weighed down by fees and charges and are roughly half the returns the money would have earned had it been invested at normal market rates, and also roughly half the returns delivered by the nation’s six biggest “industry” or not-for-profit funds in that time…
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Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
