johnnye

Look for an industry standard super fund and they are the ones that charge the lowest fees

killerhales

AGEST is well known for low fees.

I'm thinking of switching out of a Mercer fund next year, but haven't looked at the detail in terms of AGEST performance yet...

Swerv-o

Remember that most Industry Super funds are not QROPS approved if you were planning on moving UK pension funds across.


S

johnnye

Really? Be interested to see where that stat came from. I'm not disputing it, just interested.

There are plenty that are QROPS approved though.

Swerv-o

I have attached the list of current QROPS approved Super Funds.

You will have to see if your Industry Fund is on it - A quick check reveals that AGEST, CBUS, MTAA, MediaSuper, LUCRF, NGS, AustSafe, FirstSuper, REISuper and AustQ aren't approved. That's well over half of the Industry Funds, so it's worth checking before committing to a fund package.

Interesting to see that there are an awful lot of SMSFs that are approved.

IIRC, when I first arrived, in terms of fees, it was a toss up between Virgin and CareSuper - I finally went with Virgin because Care [at that time] weren't QROPS approved, though they do seem to be now.


S

paddyo

an article about Super performance in yesterdays SMH, check out the bottom for some good fact sheets about Super.

http://www.smh.com.au/money/super-an...119-1noby.html

Swerv-o

Its interesting how that rank listing doesn't appear to be available to the consuming public. Personally I dislike Super and agree with the sentiment at the end of the article - but the costs involved in running your own Super make it very difficult to get out of it and take control of your own finances.


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johnnye

Thaks for that.
I know mine's a QROPS/Industry standard fund as Ive already transferred it. Looking at the funds you can't tell be the name whether they are industry standard or not. Even so there are stacks to choose from and you can always transfer between QROPS if you so wish

johnnye

Interesting article. I actually like super as it provides a great way of paying less tax. In addition if you pick a good low cost fund which iseasy to find, regular savings over the long term produce results. It even gets put into your estate when you die.

Swerv-o

While I accept that position, there's no need to make it prohibitively expensive for people that want to manage their own super schemes - it should be an option that is available to everybody, not just the people who can afford the fees.


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johnnye

Fair point. Not sure it should be available to everyone though. It would be very easy to lose the whole lot and therefore defeat the object of having super. A dangerous game.

paddyo

I'm inclined to agree....its not just about affording it, but also about having the competency to manage it and make sound decisions which are based on some financial basis rather than risk.

Sherlock Holmes

The joy of being entirely debt free...can exist on low income!

But to answer the question, you can put the $1,000 in on the last day of the financial year if you want. Not that it will apply to many on here I guess (income wise I mean).

paulry

Thanks for the info and analysis on this thread, it's been very helpful. I've just signed up for one of the currently highest performing supers

sonlymewalter

That article is very interesting. The highest fees tend to be associated with banks and insurers who look after funds compared to other fund managed accounts. So Westpac and Commonwealth are two of the worst performing banks. I wonder how much profit they made from shoddy account management? Banks are one of the few institutions who can still perform shite and make loads of money doing nothing

The banks response is that it's a long term investment (you don't say) and a return of 6% is a good one overall. Really I bet if you stuffed the money in a long term safe savings accounts where it's not open to market fluctuations you'd gain just as much and without the threat of losing everything you've ever saved for in your dottage.

These greedy banks have duped again and super funds are one of the many rorts they've managed to get their greedy hands on without measuing their effectiveness. So oftern we trust the banks to look after our hard earned money, especially if we pay a fee for doing so. How about only paying a fee to manage a super fund if they make money?

Aus Super funds are a mess. People who have changed jobs (and subsequently Super funds) are all over the place. Don't be at all surprised if after pumping loads of money into your super fund for years you get Jack shit when you retire