What super funds spend on ads, donations, exec pay to be made public

It also flagged publishing political donations, which follows rigorous questioning of the watchdog by the Coalition over industry super funds’ payments to unions and those organisations’ financial support of Labor.

APRA said it would consult the industry until the end of November, conceding it may need to “narrow the scope of the publication and confidentiality proposals” in response to any privacy concerns raised.

Industry players previously pushed back on making these expenses public, saying it could cause “commercial detriment” or risk individuals’ privacy.

“These proposals represent an important step forward in achieving greater transparency in superannuation,” APRA deputy chairwoman Margaret Cole said.

“Under [them], members would have a clearer and more detailed picture of how their money is being spent and invested, while trustees would be further compelled to remain closely focused on improving member outcomes.”

APRA also proposed publishing industry and fund-level data on administration, operating and administration investments spends and whether this was done in-house or through contractors.

Ms Cole said APRA aimed to publish “as much of the data that we collect as possible”, especially given the “strong public interest” in having publicly available data to let consumers compare super funds.

Asset data

It proposed publishing industry-wide data on asset sectors too, which it told funds would “increase transparency of how members’ money is being invested”.

It already publishes topline data on these, but it said it wanted to break this down more. Property and infrastructure investments would be broken down into sector classifications, ownership models and development stages, for example.

Alternatives would be by strategy type, listed equity by market cap and management style, and private equity by development stage and strategy type.

There is growing concern about industry super funds’ heavy exposure to unlisted assets and questions over their valuation practices. APRA tightened its rules on how funds value these assets in July, as funds wrote as much as 15 per cent off their extensive unlisted office property investments.

Funds pushed back on publishing this industry-wide data last year by saying it could be market sensitive. But in Tuesday’s letter, APRA said it could “mitigate” this issue by publishing any data on investment allocations at a fund or investment option level at a lag of at least 90 days.