“The master custodian arrangement, where we have all our assets held by the custodian, is currently out to the market,” Mr Baird confirmed to InvestorWeekly.
“[NAB Custody Services (NCS) is] on a three-year contract and we have been with them for about six years, so it is just really time,” Mr Baird said.
The change in service provider coincides with the rural and regional fund receiving MySuper approval from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.
According to legislation, only funds that offer a simple, low-cost default product can be approved for MySuper registration.
Although the MySuper product is very similar to its current offering, Prime Super has made minor alterations to its fees set-up.
“Our default product will merge into the MySuper option fully in line with the rest of the legislation,” Mr Baird said.
“We have changed a little bit of our fee structure, we have pulled away exit fees, reducing some of our fees, but generally the product remains pretty much the same,” he added.
Prime Super now plans to focus on the government’s broader Stronger Super reforms, particularly on educating employers about the SuperStream data standards.
