Smart choice for advisers
Superannuation fund researcher SuperRatings will launch an online product to assist advisers and other financial services players to choose funds under the choice regime.
The subscription database, which has been under development for the past 12 months, is called SuperRatings SMART (an acronym for Superannuation Market Analysis Research Technology).
Managing director Jeff Bresnahan says SMART is designed to “provide advisers and numerous other financial services sector professions with a simplistic assessment of the funds out there at the moment”.
“It collects, collates and distributes the sort of fund information for advisers that is beyond the ability of a product disclosure statement (PDS) to provide,” he adds.
Bresnahan says that while a PDS is the obvious starting point for advisers helping a client look for a super fund, the search should extend much further if the client’s best interests are to be served.
“The search should include the financial statements of entities offering funds, for example, but whether advisers have the time and the ability to acquire that information is doubtful.”
Bresnahan says SMART fills the information gap for advisers, providing a “live online database system that allows for any changes to any funds to be updated within 24 hours on the system”.
According to Bresnahan, the database enables advisers to download fund and market sector information, including graphs, into a spreadsheet so they can compare suitable funds.
He says SMART will be “focused purely on multi-employer superannuation funds initially, and will carry all of the majors in that category, both not-for-profit and the commercials”.
SuperRatings already provides analysis on some of the larger public sector and corporate funds, he says.
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