Welcome to the latest issue of the KHQ Super Alert. This week, APRA published its quarterly industry statistics, AUSTRAC updated its guidance for superannuation funds and Treasury released draft legislation to make minor amendments to superannuation laws.

APRA – Quarterly industry statistics published

On 2 October 2024, APRA released the quarterly superannuation industry publication, the quarterly superannuation product statistics and the quarterly fund-level statistics for the quarter ending June 2024.

Some key statistics include that as at 30 June 2024:

• there were 57 MySuper products, 463 accumulation choice products and 349 retirement products (including transition to retirement);
• there were 14.7 million MySuper accounts; and
• the average member account balance has increased to $69,000 for MySuper products, while the average member account balance for retirement products (excluding transition to retirement) had decreased to $344,000 since the previous quarter.

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AUSTRAC – Updated list of suspicious activity indicators

On 30 September 2024, AUSTRAC updated its list of ‘Indicators of suspicious activity for the superannuation sector’ to assist superannuation funds to ‘identify potential money laundering, terrorism financing and other serious and organised criminal activity’. AUSTRAC has advised that to complement these indicators, superannuation trustees should ‘ensure [their] transaction monitoring systems alert [them] to unusual, large or complex transactions or patterns of transactions.’

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Treasury – Draft amendments to superannuation laws

On 27 September 2024, Treasury released an exposure draft Bill and exposure draft regulations called the Treasury Laws Amendment Bill 2024: Minor and technical Amendments (Spring 2024) and Treasury Laws Amendment Instrument 2024: Minor and technical amendments (Spring 2024), respectively.

The following superannuation-related amendments are proposed:

• amending the SIS Regulations to exclude transition to retirement products from the meaning of ‘trustee-directed product’ for the purposes of the annual performance test; and
• removing an exemption in the SIS Regulations relating to section 68A of the SIS Act (Trustees must not use goods or services to influence employers) as this exemption was aligned to the previous version of section 68A.

The consultation period closes on 11 October 2024.

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