Financial services are Australia's largest economic sector but the official data is inadequate for policy makers, the sector's peak body says.
Financial Services Council economist James Bond said data from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) "is important for policy and economic management, yet the data in this sector is not up to scratch and is not of the standard that the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) produces on other industries".
For example, fund flows into superannuation were $100 billion a year - according to APRA figures - in contrast to iron ore exports of $70 billion and coal exports of $40 billion - according to ABS figures.
APRA deputy chair Ross Jones said at an industry event that the authority was "mindful of the implementation issues and costs involved with a new collection".
A discussion paper on new reporting standards for superannuation would be published soon, Jones said, and "we welcome comment and submission from industry, particularly with regard to the relevance and cost of the proposed collection".
Bond said that financial services was now 10.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), which put the sector in first place ahead of mining at 9.5 per cent of GDP and manufacturing at 8.0 per cent of GDP.
Whereas ABS figures on industries such as mining, manufacturing and retail were seasonally adjusted, APRA's figures on financial services were not seasonally adjusted.
"This makes it very hard to see the effect of policy changes on discretionary behaviour," Bond said.
"For example, when contribution caps were changed, what was the impact on people's confidence?"
Bond said the FSC was talking with APRA about reviewing the quality of data so that it was comparable.
"There are different definitions of balanced funds, for example. We need to get down to that level so we can compare apples with apples", Bond said.
APRA proposed to collect various non-prudential statistics on behalf of ASIC, the ABS and "other relevant users of superannuation statistics", Jones said.
This new collection would "facilitate enhanced fund comparability, an objective of legislation", he said.
"It will have greater granularity via collecting at investment option level, an objective of industry. And it will have increased investment transparency, an objective of government and of APRA."
He anticipated that collection would begin in 2013-14 and would be significantly larger than the current collection.
"Industry has made requests for changes to the collection for a number of years. However we are mindful of the implementation issues and costs involved with a new collection," he said.
