Australia’s superannuation assets continued to grow through the first quarter of this year, with the latest Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) data revealed that total estimated assets stood at $1.36 trillion at the end of the March quarter.
APRA said that over the 12 months to March there had been an 8.6 per cent increase in total estimated superannuation assets, with industry funds leading the way increasing by 4.4 per cent, followed by corporate funds with an increase in assets of 3.7 per cent and self-managed superannuation funds by 3.3 per cent.
This compared to an increase in assets over the period of 3 per cent for public sector funds and just 2.3 per cent in retail funds.
The APRA data confirmed that SMSFs continued to hold the large proportion of superannuation assets, accounting for 31.9 per cent, followed by retail funds with 27.3 per cent and industry funds with 19 per cent.
Where rates of return were concerned for the quarter, public sector funds generated a return of 2.7 per cent, corporate funds generated a return of 2.5 per cent, industry funds generated 2.5 per cent and retail funds generated 1.9 per cent.
