‘Deeply concerning’: ASIC puts super platform trustees on notice for lack of risk oversight
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The news: The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has issued a warning to superannuation trustees after a review of six platform trustees managing over $300 billion found a lack of protections.
The regulator is prepared to undertake enforcement action against platforms that have failed to lift their standards despite earlier warnings from ASIC.
The context: A new report from ASIC about super safeguards released on Monday delved into six superannuation trustees in the platforms segment from 1 June 2024 to 31 October 2025, responsible for 72% of platform trustees’ member benefits.
It found a lack of progress in oversight of advice fee deductions and fee-related conduct and monitoring of holding limits and options on investment menus. This ultimately risks members being exposed to inappropriate investments.
In 2019 and 2021, ASIC and APRA issued joint letters about concerns relating to advice fees for this sector following royal commission findings of fees for no service in the financial services industry.
“Despite this work, and with few exceptions, progress has been too slow,” the ASIC report found. In meetings with trustees “a small number of accountable senior executives did not know what advice fee caps and other controls were in place on their platform”, the report found.
The numbers: The review covered six trustees with 720,000 members holding $305 billion, and $2.56 billion in advice fees. Over 2,580 document checks too place and there were 250 adverse findings.
Three of the trustees did not have an upper dollar-based limit on fees. One suggested a fee cap of $30,000, which was well above ASIC’s recommendation.
In the decade to June 2025, superannuation platforms have surged from $123 billion to $396 billion under management.
What they said: “It’s clear some trustees are not doing enough to protect their members, despite repeated warnings from ASIC and APRA about the dangers of poor oversight,” ASIC Commissioner Simone Constant said in a statement.
“Nor have they learned lessons from the collapses of the Shield Master Fund and First Guardian Master Fund, which cost more than 11,000 Australians around $1 billion in retirement savings,” she said.
Constant told Capital Brief that ASIC looked at the platforms as they have tripled in size over the past decade while advice fees associated with platforms have quadrupled.
So, this is serious, really high growth,” she said, adding that in some ways “they’re starkly and sharply failing”.
“It’s concerning these failings are in super ... and it’s really concerning that these are repeat failures that we’ve called out before, and in some cases is actually backsliding on where standards were only looked at two years ago,” she said.
Constant said ASIC is “not afraid to use enforcement action if it’s warranted, and it’s fair to say that we are considering [and] are actively considering opening investigations in this space at the moment in regard to harm that we see”.
The source: ASIC report and media release
