AIST policy and research executive manager David Haynes said current grandfathering arrangements have “effectively locked up” billions of dollars of super savings until 2017, which means thousands of consumers are "paying higher fees" and missing out on the “benefits of the MySuper reforms”.
“AIST estimates that there are tens of billions of dollars of default superannuation that are outside the MySuper environment because of these grandfathering arrangements,” Mr Haynes said.
“A large part of the super savings pool is not getting the benefit of the lower fee MySuper environment. This is not only discriminatory; it is not in members’ best interests,” he said.
Mr Haynes also said AIST wants to bring forward the final transition date of 30 June 2017, by which all default super savings must be moved into a MySuper product.
“While MySuper has already brought about lower fees, we won’t know the full benefits until all default super is moved to MySuper,” Mr Haynes said.
“Given the current focus on fees in superannuation, members of bank-owned super funds shouldn’t have to wait until 2017 for these fee reductions to occur,” he said.
AIST said in its submission to the Financial System Inquiry that the group is calling for a review of the effectiveness of the MySuper reforms, once the savings of all default super funds have been transitioned.
