Speaking to InvestorDaily, Ms Lander said CareSuper has most things in place when it comes to fees and costs – but the industry fund still has a bit of “updating” to do.
“There is still a challenge across the industry anyway [when it comes to fees and costs] – I’ve still got a personal bugbear about this,” she said.
Along with the superannuation prudential standards, the new regulatory regime still contains a number of loopholes that mean “fee disclosure is not genuinely comparable”, she said.
Part of the problem simply comes down to accounting, said Ms Lander – with various costs divided up differently between the investment fee and the administration fee from fund to fund.
“If funds’ operational costs are not really covered by the administration fees, there are still ways of that slipping through the cracks and not being obvious to a member,” she said.
Ms Lander was also less than thrilled about the changes CareSuper has been forced to make in order to deliver payments within three days.
“I think that timeframe is too tight – it should be a week, mainly because of unit pricing. It’s not necessarily about dragging it out, but I think a week would be more reasonable,” she said.
Speaking more generally about the fund, Ms Lander said the board was due to hold an investment meeting in February, and that the fund’s relationship with the custodian NAB Asset Services was “in the process of being reviewed” and would soon be put up for tender.
CareSuper currently has $7.6 billion in funds under management and 264,000 members.
