The latest Roy Morgan Research report on the retirement savings sector has revealed an improvement in retail superannuation fund satisfaction levels over the six months to June 2011.
The Superannuation Satisfaction Report showed that 49.6 per cent of respondents were either satisfied or very satisfied with what the research hose refers to as the Big 6 Retail Funds. This group is made up of the Commonwealth Bank Group, the Westpac Group, The NAB Group, the AMP Group, the ANZ Group and the Axa Group.
In comparison, 53.1 per cent of survey participants expressed their satisfaction with the financial performance of Industry Funds.
The difference of 3.5 per cent represents the smallest gap in satisfaction between the two major sectors since the onset of the global financial crisis (GFC). For the six months to December 2010, this gap stood at 5.8 per cent.
"Prior to the GFC the difference between Industry Fund satisfaction and that of the Big 6 was largely negligible, but the Big 6 took a much bigger hit in customer satisfaction than their Industry counterparts during the GFC. They still have a way to go to close the gap, but the signs of improvement are there," Roy Morgan Research industry communications director Norman Morris said.
The diminishing difference in satisfaction levels was due to an improvement on behalf of the retail groups of 3 per cent rather than a drop by the industry funds.
The lift in satisfaction rating of the retail group was driven by Westpac, that jumped 6.7 percentage points for the period, and Commonwealth, up 5.6 percentage points.
Care Super was the biggest improver on Industry Funds side with satisfaction levels going up 6.9 percentage points over the six months.
Catholic Super achieved the highest satisfaction approval among respondents with 61.9 per cent expressing this positive sentiment.
Commonwealth Group was the best of the Big 6 Retail Funds with 54 per cent of those surveyed saying they were satisfied with this organisation.
The report was put together from an annual sample of over 30,000 interviews performed each year covering all of the major superannuation providers.
