Speaking at a media briefing in Sydney yesterday, Martin Spedding, executive director of DST Bluedoor, a subsidary of DST Systems, said that retail funds – some of whom are clients of DST – are eyeing the MySuper reforms closely, despite the fact that only 2 have applied for registration, as opposed to 41 industry funds.
“The strategy here seems to be that the retail funds are holding back to see how the industry funds are playing this and how this may play out over time,” Mr Spedding said. “It’s not a bad play for the retail funds to sit back at this stage and just wait and see how things will progress in the market.”
Mr Spedding said some retail funds are faced with a dilemma in terms of responding to the new regime.
“Strategically of course MySuper presents a potential threat to funds that rely on disengaged or non-choice members,” he explained. “One way of countering that is to have a MySuper option but that may undermine their actual business and financial model.”
He said pricing comparisons are likely to play an important role in how retail funds approach MySuper and that analysis of fees will not be available for some time.
