By Jamie O’Brien and Cameron Woods
In December 2017, the Australian Catholic Bishops launched 2018 as the Year of Youth. Australian Catholic Superannuation and Retirement Fund have hence turned their attention to helping young people and their families understand what they need to do in order to better manage their financial needs.
ACSRF Head of Marketing and Business Development sat down with The Record Editor Jamie O’Brien to talk super, investments and why ACSRF is one of the most innovative funds in the country.
So Cameron, ACSRF has been helping Australian’s plan for their financial future since 1981, why should I look to Australian Catholic Superannuation to ‘manage my super’?
Well Jamie, firstly, let me just note that ACSRF has been keeping the needs of our members at the forefront of everything we do.
We have an excellent investment return of 9.2 per cent since inception and are a multi award-winning, low cost industry superannuation fund.
We aren’t Catholic-in-name-only, that sense of ethics and responsibility permeates through our organisation from our values to our behaviours. From a pastoral perspective, Australian Catholic Superannuation focuses on providing every one of our members with a dignified retirement.
Our in-house administration provides members with a personal level of service they trust and appreciate resulting in Australian Catholic Super receiving top quartile customer satisfaction scores year on year.
Australian Catholic Superannuation has been recognised as one of the most innovative superannuation funds in the country by being awarded the Australian Financial Reviews top 50 most innovative companies. We have also received innovation awards for our RetireSmart allocated pension product, default investment option LifetimeOne and other initiatives like our customer relationship tool. These all demonstrate a fund leading the market in delivering products and services that assist our members in their retirement planning journey.
So, Cameron, what is an industry super fund and what are the benefits of one?
As an Industry Super Fund, we are run only to benefit members, have low fees and never pay commissions to financial planners. We are focused on taking care of people throughout the course of their entire life. Simply, we’re focused on taking the challenge out of retirement planning.
We’re more than just a place where you store your super until you retire. We offer our member’s three tiers of financial advice ranging from general advice to free over-the-phone advice and a more comprehensive fee-for-service advice – all provided to help create a plan to manage and grow your wealth.
We are a trusted partner for life and assist members with their financial and non-financial well-being.
What are the hidden benefits then, of an industry super fund? Is it really going to support me when I retire?
The real beauty of an industry super fund is that we don’t hide our benefits at all. We have always been strong advocates of disclosure and stand proud behind our strong historical investment performance, low fees and profit-for-member model. Our ultimate goal is to help put you in a position to have a comfortable retirement.
We are responsible for the decisions made during every step of your journey to retirement. When returns are excellent, we look for ways to keep them growing. When they aren’t performing as well, the onus is on us to find a way to do better.
We also provide service that goes far and beyond the expectations most people have of most superannuation options – all done while keeping our fees low. This includes offering excellent insurance options, responsive customer service and a team that truly cares about our members.
Finally, and simply, we’re there for you after you’re done working. Our retirement income options help our members keep their funds growing even as they access them to pay for retirement. We’ve won awards for our RetireSmart account-based pension product, so I hope that we’re not keeping it hidden.
RetireSmart and RetireChoice are a good option for our members because it allows them to keep the bulk of their money invested and growing, which can stretch it out longer. Considering that life expectancies continue to grow – as does the quality of life – it’s important that your retirement savings continue to work as hard for you as possible.
We don’t drop our members after they’ve retired and, in fact, we’re working hard to find new ways to continue to support retirees including providing guidance around selecting an aged-care facility.
There are plenty of superannuation funds around today. What sets Australian Catholic Superannuation and Retirement Fund above the rest?
Our difference comes from being member-focused and providing an amazing customer experience. Everything that we do is about helping our members plan for a comfortable life in retirement. We introduced LifetimeOne to help people better manage their investments across their lifetime. Our financial advice services provide members with a variety of ways to get advice that is tailored to their individual circumstances. Our Retirement products are designed to take care of our members after they’ve retired.
Most importantly, all of our decisions are guided by the care and compassion that comes from Catholic ethics. Unlike 90 per cent of our competitors, we run our own administration service in-house which provides us with the agility and control to develop and implement products and services efficiently and effectively. For example, we introduced our new lifecycle default investment option LifetimeOne to market in nine months and our new public website in three months – you don’t see that every day.
Can you tell me some of the misconceptions about changing to a self-managed superannuation fund?
There’s a belief that moving to a self-managed super fund is going to be cheaper than using a more traditional super-fund because of the money that is spent on fees. We keep our fees low to help members retain more of their own money in their account. We reinvest dividends and profits back into the fund or use it on their behalf to improve their experience through developing innovative new products and services.
We’re both transparent with our fees as well as confident in the value they provide for our members.
If you want to take on the responsibilities of managing and monitoring your investments and are able to keep expenses in check, a SMSF might be something worth considering. Many people underestimate the complexity of running a self-managed fund and the effort involved.
And finally, for the majority of people, however, having a trusted provider like Australian Catholic Superannuation look after your retirement savings is a more appealing option.