Superannuation fund QSuper is aiming to improve member outcomes by breaking with the established industry practice of managing investments on a comparative basis with its competitors.
Instead, it wants to apply the information it has on members to improve the individual outcomes in retirement.
"What you see in all the [performance] surveys has nothing to do with how well we are achieving our [consumer price index plus 4 per cent] target," QSuper chief executive Rosemary Vilgan said at the Investment Management Consultants Association conference on Tuesday.
"Nobody is actually publishing the success rate."
QSuper was among the top 10 best-performing funds, based on the returns of its balanced options over the past five years, according to data from SuperRatings.
But she said that was not necessarily the member's experience.
"From a member perspective, absolute returns are very mixed and is peer the right measure? Sadly, we've all had experience with the downside," she said.
QSuper's board has taken the decision to no longer participate in SuperRatings' SR50 survey, which tracks the median performance of the 50 largest super funds in Australia.
"We are so worried about the experiences our members have gone through that we have decided peers are no longer our measure. Our board has taken the decision to exit some of the surveys," Vilgan said.
She said the focus should be on the real returns a member achieved over the period they were with the fund.
To achieve this, QSuper will change the way it defaults members into fund options by segmenting its member base.
For example, it will look at a member's age and account balance to determine an appropriate default fund.
"Why would you treat a 50 year old who is very under-funded the same as one that is very well funded?" Vilgan said.
"Now, it is not possible for every member in this country to sit down with a good financial planner, but, by goodness, we can default them better.
"Through mass personalisation we want to achieve better outcomes.
"Amazon does mass personalisation; you get targeted offers from people all the time, because they are a data mine. With the information they've got about you they are trying to attract you to their offer.
"Super funds ignore that. They treat their members as if they are investors into a unit trust."
After Vilgan's presentation, Challenger chairman of retirement income Jeremy Cooper, the former chair of the Super System Review, applauded QSuper's initiative.
"That was the best explanantion of MySuper that I've heard publicly," Cooper said.
"Good luck with the regulations."
