The industry funds awarding bonuses to advisers

House economics committee chair Tim Wilson recently asked a number of funds about their salary and bonus arrangements for employed advisers, as part of the committee’s regular inquiries into the super industry.

While most did not disclose the level of bonuses paid to their advisers, a number of significant industry funds including Hostplus and Sunsuper disclosed that they did award bonuses to staff employed to give both personal and general advice.

Hostplus stated that “all Hostplus employees are eligible to be considered in Hostplus’ performance linked incentive scheme”.

“The scheme is linked to the outcomes from the annual performance review process and only employees deemed to be top performers are considered for a performance linked incentive, and is not guaranteed to all employees,” the fund said.

Sunsuper said its advisers “are eligible for a bonus based on a balanced scorecard that includes achieving customer service-related targets, quality and compliance requirements and in accordance with conflicted remuneration provisions of the Corporations Act 2001”.

The fund disclosed its aggregate bonus value across all advisers for the 2020 financial year was $458,000, an average of $13,881 per adviser.

Aware Super, which has become Australia’s second largest industry fund this year following a slew of mergers with other funds including WA Super and Vic Super, said it also awarded adviser bonuses “based on a range of measures including demonstration of fund behaviours and values, compliance assessment and adherence to professional standards, and member satisfaction”.

Prime Super also stated that “financial advisers are eligible for a bonus based on the overall performance of Prime Super and personal performance”.

“The bonus is not based in any way on the volume of business written by financial advisers,” the fund said.

Among other major industry funds, both Australian Super and Rest stated that they did not award any bonuses to advisers.