CFS FirstChoice Lifestage hits $1 billion FUM

CFS said FirstChoice Lifestage is its leading MySuper product, after CFS was the first retail fund in Australia to receive APRA product authorisation for MySuper last year.

The $1 billion milestone is another success for CFS after the FirstChoice Multi Manager funds (FirstChoice Moderate, Growth and High Growth) were all ranked number one in performance over five years in the recent Chant West survey, according to CFS.

CFS senior manager of FirstChoice investments Peter Dymond said the growth in FirstChoice Lifestage was indicative of the direction of Australian superannuation and evidence that MySuper has enabled “new and innovative investment approaches” to be adopted by funds.

“The lifecycle investment approach is based on tailoring a member’s asset allocation based on their age, de-risking their portfolio as they get closer to retirement,” he said.

“We concluded the best approach was to structure our MySuper option so younger members have higher exposure to risk assets given they have a longer period to retirement and typically lower balances,” he added.

My Dymond also said when a member gets close to retirement, CFS believes their risk exposure should be reduced, particularly if they have not considered their financial circumstances.

“Members at this age are more susceptible to sequencing risk and a negative market could be disastrous to their standard of living in retirement,” he said.