In this guide
- Draft retirement income covenant released
- TWUSUPER calls off EISS merger
- Financial planning industry continues to shrink
- Superannuation industry at risk of losing billions due to climate change
- SMSFs must use SuperStream for rollovers
- Financial services coalition calls for broad financial compensation scheme
- Design and Distribution Obligations (DDO) go live
Draft retirement income covenant released
After releasing a position paper mid-July, the Federal Government has released draft legislation for the retirement income covenant - Treasury Laws Amendment (Measure for a later sitting) Bill 2021: Retirement income covenant.
Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and the Digital Economy, Senator Jane Hume, said the draft legislation would codify the obligation for superannuation trustees to have a retirement income strategy that outlines how they plan to assist their members in retirement.
“The strategy must consider how the trustee will assist their members to balance maximising their retirement income, managing risks, and have some flexible access to savings,” Senator Hume said when releasing the draft legislation.
The government has also cleared up confusion around whether the covenant would include self-managed super funds (SMSFs) in the draft legislation by explicitly stating in its explanatory memorandum: “This covenant does not apply to trustees of self-managed superannuation funds”.
For more information read SuperGuide article Should you develop a retirement income strategy document for your SMSF?
TWUSUPER calls off EISS merger
TWUSUPER has announced they will not be moving forward with a possible merger with EISS Super. The two industry funds announced they were in discussions in April this year.
A TWUSUPER spokesperson said “TWUSUPER’s motivation in entering merger discussions with EISS was the potential benefit members of both funds would achieve from greater scale. We also felt EISS members would benefit from TWUSUPER’s strong investment performance. Following extensive due diligence TWUSUPER will not proceed with a merger with EISS at this time. Any merger must be in members’ best interest. TWUSUPER is now pursuing other growth options.”
In August this year APRA announced that EISS Super was one of the 13 underperforming funds in it's test of MySuper funds.
Financial planning industry continues to shrink
The number of financial planners in Australia is continuing to fall, with almost 9,000 financial planners, or 30%, leaving the industry since 2018.
