A troubled super fund run by an offshoot of the Commonwealth Bank has had the highest proportion of withdrawals under Josh Frydenberg’s coronavirus early access scheme, according to data compiled by Guardian Australia.
Smaller superannuation funds appear to be hardest hit by applications for early release of super, the data suggests.
The average amount people using the scheme have so far drawn out is about $8,000. You are allowed to draw a maximum of $10,000 before 30 June and another $10,000 after that.
The Guardian has drawn together data about early releases so far applied for under the scheme, released this week by the prudential regulator, and data about the size and memberships of funds released last year to figure out which have taken the biggest hit.
You can look up your fund using our interactive widget below.
The data isn’t perfect, because the fund size data dates from June 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic wiped about 30% from global share markets.
How much of a hit any individual super fund has taken from the worldwide stock market rout depends on how it invested its assets, which varies from fund to fund.
However, hospitality industry fund Hostplus, which on the Guardian’s figures saw 1.4% of its assets redeemed under the scheme, said its withdrawals were about 1.5% so far – a very close match.
Readers can also check to see what percentage of members have asked for early release. Leading the table for drawdowns was Commonwealth Essential Super, a $3.8bn fund that has lost about 5.4% of its value to coronavirus early withdrawals.
Problems with the fund, which is closed to new members, were raised at the banking royal commission and it is the subject of a class action against the bank over the low rates paid to members who chose to invest in cash.
The fund is managed by CBA division Colonial First State, which the bank is in the process of selling.
A CFS spokeswoman said the average member balance in the fund was about $18,000.
She said that across all the funds managed by CFS requests for early access have totalled about 65,000, or 7% of super customers, for a dollar value of about $473m, she said.
“Colonial First State’s investment approach has always favoured investing in assets that have a high level of liquidity,” she said.
“This approach has proven its value with the early release scheme. As the largest account based pension provider in Australia, we are accustomed to managing liquidity for significant payments on a regular basis.”
Second-ranked fund by percentage of drawdowns was the small Sharia-compliant Crescent Wealth Superannuation Fund, with drawdowns totalling 2.3%. It couldn’t be reached for comment.
And third was Queensland industry fund Intrust, a $2.8bn fund that saw 2.2% of its assets redeemed. It also could not be reached.
.jpg?w=600)
