Advisers puzzled by super contributions, AMP reveals 

AMP Advice said that TapIn, the technical service for its advice network, received more than 10,000 queries from financial advisers over the last year, with a few topics emerging as clear pain points.

Namely, according to AMP, almost a quarter (24 per cent) of all calls and email queries for the year related to superannuation contributions and dealing with a death benefit, while 6.3 per cent of the questions received focused on concessional contributions.

AMP head of technical strategy and TapIn, John Perri, said: “The only constant in superannuation is change and we have witnessed a growing number of calls from advisers around what the latest in superannuation reforms and regulations mean for their clients”.

While a large portion of the queries from AMP’s adviser network over the last year related to super contributions, questions also arrived regarding conditions of release or withdrawal (340 queries), transfer balance caps (309 queries), dealing with a death benefit (292 queries), and home ownership issues (228 queries).

These findings follow AMP’s recent Retire with Confidence white paper, which revealed that a large cohort of Aussies are currently heading into retirement lacking the knowledge and confidence to navigate this important transition.

The white paper, which underlined the importance of advice before and in retirement, also found that as many as three in five (59 per cent) of Australians aged 50 and over wish they’d started planning for retirement earlier in life, while over half (52 per cent) do not know what a retirement income product is.

Moreover, three in four respondents told AMP that the retirement system is “complex”, while two in five said they don’t know if they’ll be eligible for aged-pension benefits. Interestingly, while most admitted to these hurdles, as many as three in four said they had not sought financial advice for retirement planning.

“This research shows the challenges faced by the growing number of Australians heading into retirement, a process they find complex and made harder by a lack of financial literacy,” said AMP chief executive Alexis George.

“This lack of financial knowledge about retirement is despite Australia having one of the world’s highest GDPs and the fifth largest pool of superannuation savings in the world.”

Also commenting on the findings, AMP’s general manager retirement solutions, Ben Hillier, said while Australia is looked at by the rest of the world as having a “sustainable, competitive and successful superannuation accumulation system”, there’s still much work to be done.