Earlier this year APRA sent a letter to 36 financial institutions requesting they undertake self-assessment similar to the CBA prudential review.
AustralianSuper released theirs last week making them the third organisation to do so after NAB and Westpac released theirs earlier this month.
The assessment concluded that the governance practices across the fund were strong although work could be done but no areas were in need or urgent work.
Interestingly AustralianSuper confirmed it did not have any divisional chief risk officers, a role that is found in many financial institutions to help manage risk.
However, an AustralianSuper spokesperson said that the group was already working on addressing that and would appoint someone to the role shortly.
“Following engagement with APRA AustralianSuper is in the process of appointing a new chief risk officer reporting directly to the CEO, while also establishing a new risk and compliance committee reporting to the board,” a spokesperson said.
The assessment also revealed that the group did not have any non-financial risk committees at the management level and investments just had an operational risk group.
AustralianSuper said it would update its risk appetite statement and roll out training accordingly after royal commission had lifted the bar for community expectations.
The fund still needed to define what that looked like among a range of further enhancements including new risk reporting requirements that would be reviewed by KPMG.
It was announced earlier that APRA had requested further information from the superfund which a spokesperson confirmed and said the group was working through them.
“APRA had some comments about the report and we are working through those comments and observations with them,” they said.
The report concluded that the board was determined not to be complacent and was undertaking further work to enhance its processes.
“The board is seeking to learn from the experience of others and from the preparatory work performed within AustralianSuper and apply those learnings to further enhance the processes across the organisation,” it said.
The superfund was one of eleven major funds to be asked for a review by APRA and APRA has come out saying that 10 of the funds showed a moderate or poor level of understanding.
Three provided reports that had a moderate or poor depth while four deliver reports that were moderate to poor in their difficulty.
No other funds have released their details but a few of the funds like Cbus and REST said it would release their responses in the near future.
