The organisation representing the majority of Australia's industry super funds – the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST) – has called on them to move to provide full disclosure of trustee director and executive pay ahead of any Government regulation.
The call has come against the background of criticism of some industry funds from other sectors of the financial services industry and the Federal Opposition.
However, AIST chief executive Fiona Reynolds said it was time for superannuation funds to take the next step and not simply wait for legislation and regulation to arrive before the industry.
She said that by calling on its own member funds to adopt the highest disclosure standards, AIST was hoping it would raise the bar across the entire industry.
The Financial Services Council (FSC) in March released its own corporate governance standards which it said would be mandatory for member companies, however, Reynolds said that currently many of the superannuation funds operated by the large banks and financial institutions did not even disclose the names of their trustee directors on their websites.
"And I challenge anyone to find out how much they are paid," she said.
Reynolds said the FSC guidelines, whilst welcome, fell well short of providing meaningful disclosure to consumers.
"Under the FSC guidelines, only remuneration paid from the trusts of many retail funds will be disclosed to members," she said.
"Yet in many cases, this remuneration is peanuts compared to the remuneration some directors receive as an employee of the Trust's parent company."
Reynolds said the AIST believed the ability to 'look through' commercial arrangements was vital to meeting the superannuation industry's public obligations and growing expectations around transparency and disclosure.
