Over the next 15 years the Australian superannuation industry will evolve into a sophisticated and mature industry, according to Rice Warner's Superannuation Market Projections report.

The new report takes a very positive view of the Australian super system over the next decade, predicting funds will be required to hold more capital as the system matures.

The report suggests funds will also streamline their in-house processes to focus on investment while outsourcing other functions.

"Most superannuation funds will outsource basic administration functions such as transactions processing, unit pricing and member statements as these are commodity services with low fees based on volumes," Rice Warner said.

"However, most other services will be self-administered."

Additionally, the report is predicting funds will change their offerings to focus less on the individual and more on families.

"Funds will set up retirement solutions as a different business with specialised administration (not yet available), financial advice and product structures that are tailored to members," it said.

"Funds will target families rather than individual members and provide support for couples in the same way SMSFs do today. This will deliver tailored and more appropriate outcomes to members."

The way in which funds invest will also change, according to the report, as well as super funds potentially dipping their toes into other markets outside of super.

"Funds could leverage their strong investment capacity to provide access to investments (outside superannuation) for medium term savings such as providing for school fees or home deposits," Rice Warner said.

"The funds will invest more outside Australia. Within Australia, there will be high levels of unlisted assets (direct company ownership, property and infrastructure) and proportionally less listed assets - due to the size of the Australian savings pool relative to the market capitalisation of the tradeable markets."

One clear prediction is around the growing size of Australia's retirement industry, which the report suggests is only likely to get bigger.

"Over the next 15 years, the market will grow at a lower rate than the last two decades. Lower fund earnings and slower population growth will lead to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 3.6% a year," it said.

"Retirement assets will grow by about 5.4% a year for the industry/public sector segment and about 4.8% a year for the commercial funds."

Despite the growth, the report suggests there will be a slow-down in the growth of SMSFs as more of those large funds wind-up as their members die.?

"This segment will grow by only 1.5% a year which holds the total retirement growth to 3.4% - a little less than the growth of accumulation funds," Rice Warner said.

"Our projections indicate that market dynamics will shift in the next decade. To remain competitive funds will need to ensure that they can deliver quality outcomes to members both in current conditions and in the context of ongoing market development and change."