The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has criticized superannuation trustees for failing to adequately safeguard members’ retirement savings, highlighting ongoing risks reminiscent of previous fund collapses such as Shield and First Guardian. The corporate regulator’s findings stem from a review of superannuation platform trustees overseeing more than A$300 billion in member funds between June 2024 and October 2025.
ASIC’s report revealed significant shortcomings in trustee oversight, particularly regarding the monitoring of advice fees, harmful deductions, and high-risk investment strategies. During the review period, A$2.6 billion was paid in advice fees by approximately 720,000 members who received financial advice. However, trustees conducted just 2,580 reviews of advice documents, uncovering 250 adverse issues. One trustee notably carried out only 21 such checks over 17 months, with 75 percent revealing problems.
ASIC commissioner Simone Constant expressed concern that trustees have not absorbed lessons from past fund failures. “In one disturbing case, a trustee failed to take further action for 13 months after becoming aware of suspicious activity from a representative of an advice licensee,” she said. Constant emphasized that significant gaps in oversight expose retirement savings to unacceptable risks, often in pursuit of expanding business volume.
The regulator also identified “persistent gaps” in advice fee management. One trustee sought to increase the cap on advice fees from current levels to A$30,000, although the highest fee recorded during the review was A$25,000. Additionally, three of the six trustees had no upper limits on fees, while percentage-based fee caps ranged widely from 1.7 percent to 10 percent.
Other issues included periods where half of the trustees did not perform any checks of advice documents for at least one month, inadequate scrutiny of licensee business models that used lead generators or third-party referrals, and insufficient monitoring of key risk indicators such as unusual fund movements or limit breaches.
Ms. Constant called on trustees to urgently strengthen their protections for members and warned that ASIC will not hesitate to take enforcement action against significant noncompliance. “When we identify significant noncompliance, we will not hesitate to exercise our regulatory powers, including enforcement action,” she said.
The findings raise fresh concerns about the sustainability of current oversight frameworks in the superannuation sector, as trustees manage growing demands while facing regulatory pressure to improve governance and risk controls.