Seven Christian super funds are in the final stages of setting up an unincorporated association.
The Christian Superannuation Funds Association met on the last day of the Conference of Major Superannuation Funds on the Gold Coast last month to finalise its constitution, and will hold its first annual general meeting in June.
"We do have now a final form of a constitution," Christian Super chief executive Peter Murphy said. A couple of funds need to go back to their boards to finalise details, but everyone around the table has indicated that they are comfortable with the final form of the constitution," he said.
The association was established to facilitate closer cooperation between the funds in response to a more complex regulatory environment and mounting pressures on small funds to achieve cost benefits.
"We discussed how we could achieve four things: First, improved member benefits through reduced costs and improved services, two, facilitate ties between funds of shared values, three, where appropriate to exchange intellectual property and four, represent ourselves as funds of shared values in the regulatory environment," Murphy said.
The association would not seek to interact directly with the federal government on regulatory issues as it felt this would be better left to the industry bodies, including the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST) and The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA). But uniting forces would help the funds to represent themselves within these industry associations.
"We were very lucky to have representatives of AIST and ASFA come and talk to us as a body, and give us their perspective on the changing regulatory environment and the implication on funds like ourselves," Murphy said.
"The Christian funds have been talking for many years, and the establishment of an association is about moving forward and formalising these relationships," Uniting Church Beneficiary Fund chairperson Robert Hoskin said. "We share a common ethos and we've been talking about what it means to be a Christian fund in a secular market. We've had a dialogue around the care for members and ethical investing," Hoskin said.
Christian Super has been widely recognised for its ethical investment approach. But Hoskin said Uniting Church Beneficiary Fund incorporates a less restrictive approach based on ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance considerations).
"We have a defined benefit component to our fund and are not able to restrict our investments as much as Christian Super which offers choice of investments to its members," he said.
Hoskin also flagged financial advice and education seminars as concerns the funds could look at.
