‘Net benefit to members misleading’ – Chant

The current advertising campaign funded by industry funds and the notion of “net benefit to members” came under fire at last months’ Investment and Financial Services Association annual conference in Brisbane, from leading analyst, Warren Chant.

Chant, from research house Chant West, made no bones about the attractiveness and performance of industry funds but said that recent choice of superannuation fund advertising relating to “net benefit to members” was misleading.

“It presents industry funds in the best possible light and can be very misleading for members of retail master trusts,” he said.

Chant said that his company thought very highly of industry funds, which were mostly very well run and delivering cheaper fee structures to members. However, the case they had mounted with respect to choice and net benefit to members had been very misleading.

He said that notwithstanding the misleading nature of some of the advertising and data comparisons, retail master trusts needed to pick up their acts because the industry funds represented “a juggernaut” which was coming in their direction.

Chant said that there were a number of things retail master trusts could do to limit the damage likely to be inflicted by the industry funds “juggernaut”, and the implementation of more competitive fee structure represented a good starting point.