Retail MySuper to put NFPs on back foot

  

Isn't it ironic that it is only when industry funds come under competitive cost pressure that the idea of paying more for better options and service comes to the surface? It certainly contradicts their simplistic advertising campaign over the last few years.

  Cameron, I think you're confused. The ISFs campaign was about commissions and the padding effect these had on fees in many retail products. That battle has been decisively had and won by them, a la FoFA.

The "who can get the lowest cost product into the market' is a folly and an distraction. It's not about fees, or gross returns, it's the net outcome of these...the amount that actually hits the client's super account that at the end of the day - retirement day - is what matters. BT's super for life is a case in point...looks good from a consumer's point of view, but the performance has been poor. low cost? Not really at 1% of FUM. Low performance? Yep, all the league tables confirm that.

So, on the all-important measure of net return, I believe the ISFs still have the high ground and will continue to do so after the MySuper dust has settled.

  There is no confusion or anonymity on my part. I simply observed the irony of industry funds shifting the industry debate to fees and now being advised by Paul Costello to broaden the discussion from fees alone to include the value of paying more for more diversified investments. This has been the position of the advice industry all along!

Let's raise the discussion above the ISFs advertising rhetoric and consider some facts concerning the basis of the ISF "compare the pair" campaign. The implicit underlying assumptions of the ads are that:
* fees are the primary determinant of financial success;
* advice is a cost that adds absolutely no value to financial success (i.e. the only difference in the comparative retirement positions is the cumulative cost of advice); and
* industry funds and retail super funds are completely homogeneous groups - the former all cheap and the latter all expensive.

All three assumptions are flawed and contradicted by the evidence. Clearly this is not the case when an adviser receives a commission and provides no service. This situation is not supported or justified by anyone in our profession (I am assuming that you are an adviser) yet it is portrayed by the advertising campaign as the norm in the retail sector. So while you say that the battle has been won by the ISFs, I would add the qualification that the campaign has won over those people who believe that minimising fees is the main priority and that financial advice adds no value. I am grateful that industry funds are in the market to look after those people. I remain focussed on supporting clients who recognise the value of receiving good advice and are willing to pay a fair fee for it (and these clients are not sitting in the diversified super funds that the ISFs benchmark themselves against).