RC sees industry funds increase satisfaction lead over retail

As the banks face issues with customer satisfaction so too have their associated super funds, with Roy Morgan finding that industry funds have increased their customer satisfaction ratings with their financial performance over retail funds in the last six months.

In the six months to October, satisfaction with industry funds was 61.8 per cent comparted to 58.2 per cent for retail funds, representing a 1.4 per cent increase on its lead from this time last year.

The only member group for which retail funds recorded higher satisfaction ratings that their industry counterparts was those with balances under $5,000, for whom their rating of 49 per cent was 0.4 percentage points higher. This segment accounted for just 0.1 per cent of total market value.

Industry funds beat retail funds by the most in the $250,000 to $699,999 segment, where they led by 10.9 percentage points, followed by the $100,000 to $249,999 group where they led by 8.7 points.

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Roy Morgan industry communications director, Norman Morris, pinned these results on retail funds and their providers taking the brunt of the adverse publicity generated by the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry.

“This publicity has the potential to adversely impact satisfaction ratings relative to industry funds which have received very little attention,” he said. “In addition, published performance tables on superannuation generally show industry funds have been performing better than retail funds.”

Satisfaction with both industry and retail funds improved as balances increased. For balances of $700,000 or more, both has their highest satisfaction, with industry funds on 80.5 per cent and retail funds on 75.9 per cent.