I moved from the uk 2 years ago, moved my pension fund to a QROPS certified Super fund using a reputable Australian Financial Advisor. I later opened a second super fund for my Australian employment contributions. Admittedly, my instructions were for very conservative investments, so greater than 75% has been in a cash account. That being the case, my expectations are that the return would at least be equal to what I would have realised by putting the amount in the best rate account I could find from a high street bank.

I have found that the return has been very low, and the amount in my initial fund is about the same as it was to start 2 years ago, since any gains have been completely swallowed up by what I think are very high fees from my FA for an uncomplicated financial profile. That is confined to investment of my 2 super funds.

I am thinking about cancelling the services of the Financial Advisor, keeping my funds with the same Super company, and Saving the fees.

Can anyone tell me if this makes sense, and are there any risks I may not be aware of?

generally it is advised not to hold more than 1 supa account.
and SMSF is only recommended if you have a critical mass of funds (some say $100k) to gain economies of scale in regard to fund expenses (there are strict compliance requirements that can be costly) and if you are really good at investing.

Consider moving it into INGDirect's Living Super - The basic balanced fund attracts NO managements fees, and the managed fund is only 0.75% of the fund balance.

The best part is that the buy-sell spread is very small, which effectively allows you to manage your own super fund without the associated compliance costs of an SMSF, which are purposefully high to put you off of trying to do it.

Have a look here:

Living Super


S

A SMSF isn't too onerous to manage, but you do have to pay attention to the rules - mistakes can lead to withdrawal of approval and tax liabilities.

You have to have at least annual general meetings of the trustees, written fund objectives etc - nothing very complicated but you have to keep on top of things.

Our SMSF costs $1496 (last financial year) for the annual accounting and separate audit plus IIRC something like $180 for compliance fee. So you have to take the admin costs into account before working out if it's worth it - as another poster says it's not worth the candle until the fund has a reasonable capital base.

On the plus side - especially if you have a lot of it in fixed interest - you're not paying someone to cock it up on your behalf.

Thanks everyone. Some great ideas here.