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Sally is a senior personal finance and superannuation writer |
Life expectancy a ticking time bomb for household savings
Sally Patten
Sally Patten | The downside of increased life expectancy is that it needs to be funded – preferably self-funded.
Quit regulating super, start innovating
Sally Patten
Governance is just one of the challenges facing super funds in 2014. The industry will need to up the pressure on the Abbott government if it is to have any hope of the Coalition fulfilling its election promise to raise the super guarantee to 12 per cent.
Industry funds warn of systemic DIY risks
Sally Patten
It should come as no surprise that super funds’ natural biases have come to the fore in submissions to the terms of reference for Treasurer Joe Hockey’s financial review.
Few answers to age-old pension problem
Sally Patten
At some point, lifting the pension age beyond 67 – the level it will reach by 2023 – will be necessary, given the trends in life expectancy and pressures on the public purse. However, Treasurer Joe Hockey has had little option but to dismiss the Productivity Commisssion’s suggestion the pension age be lifted to 70.
Battlelines drawn by both sides on the future of SMSFs
Sally Patten
CP 216, industry-speak for the securities regulator’s latest consultation paper on self-managed superannuation funds, seemed innocuous enough. But in the world of superannuation, nothing is ever simple.
Low-income earners stung by scrapped rebate
Sally Patten
No one in the superannuation industry begrudges the Coalition axing Labor’s proposed tax on earnings and capital gains on retirees whose private pension funds generate income of more than $100,000 a year. But the decision to dump the rebate for low-income earners is inexcusable.
The benefits of an annuities market
Sally Patten
Australia needs to develop an annuities market, argues Moshe Milevsky, associate professor of finance at the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto.
Calls grow for bigger ASIC budget
Sally Patten
In an interview in 2012, the head of the securities regulator told this newspaper: “You get what you pay for.” Australian Securities and Investments Commission chairman Greg Medcraft pointed out the ASIC had 26 staff to cover 25 investment banks, which meant they were reviewed every 1.3 years, while the 220 hedge funds that come under its umbrella may be looked at once every 6.6 years.
Super fund reports must do better
Sally Patten
Most annual reviews of superannuation funds are pretty skinny, to say the least, offering no more than a few highlights of the 2013 financial year. If funds wish to keep members from moving to the self-managed sector, they will need to do better.
Defined contribution funds ‘not best model’
Sally Patten
As companies around the world find the cost of guaranteed pensions prohibitive, so-called defined benefit superannuation schemes are becoming a thing of the past.
RBA’s eyes should be on SMSF investors
Sally Patten
What, one wonders out aloud, is going on at the Reserve Bank of Australia? In less than two weeks the central bank has sounded two warnings over the fast-growing self-managed superannuation fund sector.
ASIC targets risky property schemes
Sally Patten
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission hopes to prevent unscrupulous property promoters targeting vulnerable investors.
Wake up and smell tomorrow’s super coffee
Sally Patten
Industry superannuation funds need to innovate to maintain momentum in a changing world.
Board independence doesn’t mean better governance: academic
Sally Patten
Super industry funds will have the most work to do to engage with their likely new best friends in Canberra, the Coalition.
Big test still ahead for Perpetual’s Lloyd
Sally Patten
By all accounts, Perpetual boss Geoff Lloyd, is well advanced on his goals of cutting costs and simplifying the business.
A super fund that invests for good?
Sally Patten
The alphabetical soup representing socially responsible investing has been popular for a decade but now the market is moving towards a new mode: impact investing
Super funds weigh up bulk benefits
Sally Patten
Despite the more onerous obligations being put on super trustees and their management teams, there has been little action on the merger front, leaving the $1.6 trillion sector fragmented and inefficient.
Telstra Super still silent on Crowe’s rugby spend
Sally Patten
After revelations that Telstra Superannuation Fund CEO Martin Crowe attended a rugby match at members’ expense, the fund’s response is disappointing.
Bowen backflips on superannuation
Sally Patten
Two days after pledging not to change super policy for five years, Treasurer Chris Bowen announced he would raise the threshold for seizing super accounts to $6000.
Demand for instant access to savings strategies
Sally Patten
In a survey published by the Financial Services Council last week, wealth bosses cited the cost and volume of regulation as their biggest concerns.
