MySuper options will have to include some form of life-cycle strategy, according to former Super System Review chairman Jeremy Cooper.
Cooper said the Super System Review panel should have more strongly pushed life-cycle options in the recommendations it made to the government, but he expected the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) to place a heavy emphasis on that strategy.
"We didn't make a big thing out of life-cycling, because we didn't want that issue to become a dominant debate around all the other things during the review," he said at an IMCA presentation earlier this week.
"But reflecting on it, I'm absolutely convinced that most MySuper products will have to incorporate some form of life-cycling.
"It is the wrong call to go soft on that in the recommendations, but I think also when people are starting to have the discussions on what a MySuper offering will look like, they might find that APRA is pretty high on the curve of life-cycle ideas as well."
He said the focus on accumulation within the defined contribution system had prevented the financial goals of retirees being taken into account.
"I simply cannot accept that a 21st century super fund has the 18-year-old and the 74-year-old all swimming around in the same asset allocation," he said.
He also said the direction the regulators and government had taken with MySuper licensing had gone beyond what the review originally envisaged.
The panel envisaged that trustees could either adopt the changes within their default structure or establish a new product, he said.
"It was not meant to be disruptive and meant to allow certain types of default funds morph into a MySuper product," he said.
"It looks like that as an RSE (registrable superannuation entity) you should get a new licence, but it was never intended that you must absolutely have a new fund," he said.
