According to ISA, ASIC’s new fee disclosure guideline favours retail funds by allowing them to continue to avoid disclosing underlying costs on platform-based products.
ISA chief executive David Whiteley said the carve-out applied to platform-based products, and will result in inconsistent disclosure across sectors.
“While ASIC has sought to improve consistency of disclosure through this process, the carve-out provided to retail choice products would seem to be counterproductive.
“The public needs more concise and clearly communicated information about these opaque, complex platform-based choice super products, not less disclosure,” he said.
In a statement issued by ASIC, the regulator said it made clarifications to the requirements for disclosing fees and costs.
These include clarification on: the disclosure of costs of investing in interposed vehicles, disclosure of indirect costs, removal of doubt that double counting of some costs for superannuation products is not required and the appropriate application of the consumer advisory warning.
ASIC commissioner Greg Tanzer said: “The work ASIC has completed in this area will help improve the quality of disclosure to consumers, which will strengthen their confidence in superannuation and managed investments.”
ISA concluded that it supports ASIC’s approach to disclosure of fees and costs for the rest of the industry.
