The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has sharply lifted transparency around superannuation member outcomes with the publication of its first Choice Heatmap, alongside the annual MySuper Heatmap.
The Choice Heatmap, which captures products and options in which members have made an active decision to invest, represents the first time the performance of this segment of the market has been exposed to such public scrutiny. The MySuper Heatmap, meanwhile, which was first published in 2019, has been expanded to include each product's assessment result received under the new Your Future, Your Super Performance Test.
In aggregate, the two heatmaps cover 60 per cent of member benefits in the APRA-regulated superannuation sector. Alongside each heatmap, APRA has also published an insights paper highlighting key findings plus two technical papers with more detailed findings.
The inaugural Choice Heatmap focuses on multi-sector investment options in open, accumulation products (excluding platform products), representing 40 per cent of total member benefits in the APRA-regulated choice sector. APRA intends to leverage its Superannuation Data Transformation to further refine and expand its Choice Heatmap over coming years to cover more of the sector.
Key insights from the latest refresh of the MySuper Heatmap include:
- 45 per cent of MySuper products (31 out of 69) delivered returns below APRA's heatmap benchmarks;
- 22 MySuper products have closed since the release of the first MySuper Heatmap; of those 22 products, three failed the Your Future, Your Super performance test in 2021;
- investment returns are the primary driver of underperformance; and
