Industry, government and corporate superannuation funds have been included for comparison in an updated version of a Mercer Investment Consulting superannuation fund assessment service.
The firm’s principal David Carruthers said the service, named ‘Mercer >IS< Super’, did not give funds an overall rating, but rather compared funds based on factors including investment, insurance, fees and services offered.
“We rate the investment side of things, but the idea is that each investor is looking for different things in a superannuation fund,” he said.
Carruthers said the service was accessed through the company’s website and contained data on more than 100 superannuation products covering over 1,800 investment options.
Fund information was sourced primarily from product disclosure statements (PDS) and confirmed in some cases with the fund provider. Research was conducted by a global team of 40 full time staff who could update the service as funds changed their managers, PDS or investment options for example.
Carruthers said most of the current debate on superannuation fund comparison had centred on the relative merits of industry versus retail funds.
“This overlooks the fact that many employees will be choosing between two different industry funds, or indeed a corporate and an industry fund.”
He said advisers in Mercer’s financial planning arm and in other dealer groups that were Mercer’s clients had requested the expansion of the superannuation comparison service to include non-public funds.
He confirmed the service would be used by the company’s own financial planning business and AMP Financial Planning had also expressed an interest.
