APRA figures reveal late paying funds in the minority

The prudential regulator’s early release data from the week ending 3 May revealed that super funds issued early release payments worth around $6.3 billion to 830,000 members, with an average payment size of $7,629.

The average payment processing time across the 177 funds who submitted data to APRA for the week was 3.1 business days after receiving an early release application from the ATO, with 96 per cent of payments processed within five business days.

APRA also released fund-level data around the early release scheme for the first time, which revealed that in the main, funds were being consistent in their processing of member payments.

Over 95 per cent of payments across major funds such as Australian Super, AMP, First State Super, HostPlus and IOOF were made within five business days. Sunsuper made the largest dollar amount of weekly payments with almost $785 million paid out during the week.

Among those on the slower end of the payments scale were MediaSuper, which only made around 65 per cent of payments in the five-day window; Perpetual’s Select Superannuation Fund, which was paying 93.5 per cent within five days; and Colonial First State FirstChoice Superannuation Trust, which paid just over 92 per cent within five days.

However, a spokesperson for Colonial First State said the group was in the top 10 per cent of super funds for processing times on a cumulative basis, and had paid out more than 95 per cent of applications received so far. The spokesperson attributed the reduced processing times in this specific week to initial delays in receiving files from the ATO.

Out of the 177 funds, 57 made all payments within five days, 24 paid 99 per cent within five days and 18 funds made 98 per cent of payments within the five-day window.

APRA deputy chair Helen Rowell said the figures demonstrated that super trustees understood the importance of getting payments as quickly as possible to members who may be enduring financial hardship.

“This is a new scheme, and some funds have received tens of thousands of applications, so an average payment time so far of 3.1 days following receipt of applications from the ATO is a positive story,” Ms Rowell said.

“We recognise, however, that it may be both necessary and appropriate for trustees to take longer in some cases.

“This is no doubt frustrating to those awaiting payments, but the recent attempted fraud being investigated by the Australian Federal Police emphasises that care is needed to ensure payments go to the right people.”

The prudential regulator said in addition to concerns about possible fraud, other reasons funds might be taking longer to make payments included incomplete information provided by the ATO, application errors by members that required clarification, verification of mismatches between member information provided by the ATO and that held by the fund, and defined benefit members whose applications required additional processing.