Australian Retirement Trust commits to super advice

The Australian Retirement Trust, the merged entity of QSuper and Sunsuper, says it will allow more of its two million superannuation fund members to receive advice.

Anne Fuchs, head of advice at Australian Retirement Trust, said she was keen to enable more members to get financial advice. Prior to the merger, she was head of advice and retirement at Sunsuper for seven years.

Australian Retirement Trust had over two million members and $230 billion in funds under management.

Fuchs joined the industry in 1997 and had worked at the Association of Financial Advisers, BT and Colonial First State. During her time, she said she had seen “more consumer empowerment, greater transparency and integrity” as well as the democratisation of wealth.

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Her role now involved enabling members to receive advice either via digital advice for Queensland Government employees, intra-fund advice over the phone to members and supporting external financial advisers who provided advice to members.

Writing on a blog for the fund, she said: “What drives me is the spirit of what superannuation is and what it intended to achieve when it was first established – dignity for all Australians at the end of their working life.

“I have always reflected, as someone in this industry, that it’s easy to give advice to someone who is already wealthy, but to do this for people who wouldn’t have accumulated a nest egg without superannuation is a privilege and an honour.”

Fuchs said she was looking forward to serving a broader group of members and providing them with more opportunities to get financial advice.

“I am especially looking forward to real and impactful policy changes to advance the cause of women, including proper financial recognition of our caring professions.”

Reflecting on being a woman in leadership, she said she hoped she could break down the ‘group think’ at play and the unconscious bias. However, while she agreed gender quotas were a good start, she felt they should be overlaid with a broader definition of diversity and include factors such as socioeconomic background, cognitive style and ethnicity.

Australian Retirement Trust had six women on its board and five on its executive leadership team.