Four years to modernise super payments

Ian Rogers
The superannuation sector, and employers who make super payments, may have until 2015 to adjust to the processing and administration reforms of these payments proposed by the Cooper Review.

A Treasury official told an industry conference on Friday that on present timetables the reforms would be wholly in place in 2015.

Philip Hind, national programme manager for data standards and e-commerce told the conference that legislation to enable mandated standards on super payments would most likely be enacted in 2012.

Regulations on super payments may apply initially to rollover payments of super and then to payments by large employers, and then to payments by small employers.

He said the standards would also apply to payments to and from self-managed superannuation funds.

Hind sketched out the timetable with the proviso that Treasury ministers were still to confirm these target dates. Hind was speaking at the Payroll News conference, held in Melbourne on Friday.

One issue lacking consensus in industry working groups is that of governance standards for superannuation payments.

Pauline Vamos, chief executive of the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, told the conference that a new governance body was needed.