1 Australian superannuation data APRAs data collection and publications 24 April 2013.

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Australian superannuation dataAPRA’s data collection and publications

24 April 2013

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APRA’s superannuation data collection

Background• APRA• The Australian superannuation landscape

Current collection• History• Why does APRA collect data?• Challenges

Change underway• Legislative change• Mismatch between current collection

and user’s needs• Where to now?

APRA

• The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) is the prudential regulator of the Australian financial services industry. It oversees banks, credit unions, building societies, general insurance and reinsurance companies, life insurance, friendly societies, and most members of the superannuation industry.

• Our mission: to establish and enforce prudential standards and practices designed to ensure that, under all reasonable circumstances, financial promises made by institutions we supervise are met within a stable, efficient and competitive financial system.

 • We also act as the national statistical agency for the Australian financial sector.

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The Australian Superannuation landscape

• Predominantly defined contribution

• Superannuation assets - the same size as Australia’s GDP

• Stronger super reforms:– Prudential standards for superannuation

– MySuper product

– Superstream

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History of current collection

• Predecessor agency collections.

• Primary use / user for data?

• Mismatch between data collected and users’ needs.

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Why does APRA collect data?

• Prudential

• Publication

• On behalf of other financial sector agencies

• Assist minister to formulate financial policy.

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How and why we collect data for prudential standards

• D2A

• Examples

Data for prudential supervision

• Supervisory perspective: a starting point for analysis

Compliance with prudential standards.

Financial analysis.

Flag areas to speak to entity and get further information.

• APRA’s powers – key difference to stats agencies

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Publications

Promote understanding and assist research and public discussion on policy-issues, and well-informed decision-making by policy-makers, other regulators, market analysts, researchers and senior management of financial institutions.

Promote transparency and accountability of the financial institutions it regulates

Publication

• Quarterly reports about superannuation• Returns• Fees

• Seek to make much of the data publically accessible

• Improve how the data can be accessed

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Challenges for superannuation data collection

• Are we measuring accurately what we want to measure?

• Seemingly simple questions:– How many superannuation members are

there?

– What investments does a funds have exposure to?

– What are the costs to a member of being in a fund?

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Challenges: Current examples

• Defined benefit funding

• Different structures of super funds result in different reporting. Comparability suffers – how to resolve?

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• Purpose of different users may or may not overlap

Challenges for superannuation data publication

• How should the market be segmented?

• What ratios to publish?

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-15.0%

-10.0%

-5.0%

0.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

02/ 03 03/ 04 04/ 05 05/ 06 06/ 07 07/ 08 08/ 09 09/ 10 10/ 11 11/ 12

Rate of Return (ROR)

Corporate Industry Public sector Retail 10 yr ROR

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Collect data on behalf of other agencies

• ABS

• ASIC

• ATO

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Where to now?

• Discussion paper on publications released later this year.

• Work in progress