APRA had advised registrable superannuation entity (RSE) licensees on April 23 that it would require then to comply with the new superannuation reporting form (SRF) 711.0 relating to SuperStream benchmarking measures from the first quarter of the 2013/2014 financial year.
According to APRA, SRF 711.0 “was designed to collect data to supplement other sources of information that would give insight into the rate of take-up of the Data and Payment Standards issued by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) in December 2012, and some of the direct consequences of its adoption”.
A submission from the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) raised concerns about the late notification of the new reporting requirement.
“ASFA understands that the ATO has been considering the need for metrics to gauge the adoption of the data standards for the past 12 months,” it said.
“If this is the case, ASFA finds it inappropriate that the industry is only made aware of the proposed requirement two months out from the date from which the data is to be collected, in a period when the industry is busy implementing a number of changes.”
ASFA queried the need for information on contributions to be provided from 1 July 2013 “given that the requirement for employers to conform with the data standard does not commence until either 1 July 2014 or 1 July 2015, depending on the size of the employer”.
Submissions from the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees and the Financial Services Council also raised concerns over the proposed implementation timeframe. IQ Group chief executive Graham Sammells recently told InvestorDaily the timeframes set by the government were "extremely challenging".
“In light of those submissions, APRA has decided to defer commencement of the collection of SRF 711.0 until the first quarter of 2014/2015. That is, the first submission of data will not be due until 28 October 2014,” APRA stated in a letter to RSE licensees.
APRA had proposed that it would require submission of SRF 711.0 from the first quarter of 2013/2014 to the last quarter of 2018/2019, by which stage it said the implementation process should have been completed for one year.
Data required would include information on the number of inward and outward rollovers and contributions classified by compliance with the data and payments standard, whether manual handling or error resolution was required, and the cost of straight through processing.
