A letter from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) to superannuation fund trustees has highlighted their role in ensuring new data standards are maintained under SuperStream legislation.
The notice said trustees should be proactively preparing for the introduction of the reforms which require APRA-regulated funds to adopt the new data standards for processing rollovers and accepting contributions from employers by 1 July 2013.
APRA said it expected trustees to "ensure they have a robust system in place to regularly review and report on the quality of member data for completeness and accuracy".
The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) said although employers were the main source of data, standards were expected to improve for the whole industry under the new standards and trustees had their role to play.
"APRA has made clear today that trustees will need to be able to demonstrate they have a robust process in place to ensure they capture and verify member data with high accuracy rates," ASFA chief executive Pauline Vamos said.
ITM, data specialists working with ASFA to benchmark the quality of superannuation data, said standardisation and processing were not all that was needed for clearer data.
"Trustees will now be required to demonstrate that they periodically measure the quality of data being received and applied to members' benefits," ITM managing director Steve Shoreson said.
Trustees should focus on ensuring a number of data items critical to the accurate and timely calculation of member benefits are collected, including members' full name, date of birth, address, mobile phone number, tax file number, date account opened, beneficiary and gender, APRA said.
Large and medium sized employers are expected to adopt the standard by 1 July 2014 and small employers by 1 July 2015.
