Solvency strife for one sixth of super funds

Ian Rogers
Solvency strife is rife, or was rife, in the superannuation fund sector, APRA said in the June 2009 edition of Insight.

APRA said that 15.9 per cent of defined benefit funds and 19.7 per cent of defined benefit and hybrid sub-funds "were in an unsatisfactory financial position at June 2008".

With the later decline in investment markets these numbers, APRA wrote, "have increased".

APRA provided no further data on the type and size of funds or the number of funds' members affected.

Presumably the problems are concentrated in smaller funds, so lower proportions of super funds' members - but still maybe five to 10 per cent of all members - are in funds of dubious solvency.