ASIC Commissioner Greg Tanzer said ASIC was concerned that consumers could be misled by the superannuation choice advertisements which ran from February to May this year.
Under the agreement with ASIC, ISA will ensure that future versions of the campaign clarify the terms ‘Average Retail Super Fund’ and ‘Average Industry Super Fund’ by providing details about the samples used in the comparison, including the number of retail and industry funds in the samples.
ISA will also clarify a voiceover noting that past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.
In addition, ISA has agreed that any future iterations of the advertising will be consistent in terms of the time period selected for the comparison.
“We are pleased that ISA has worked cooperatively with ASIC and put forward a suitable proposal to address our concerns,” Mr Tanzer said.
Since the ASIC announcement, ISA has defended its advertising campaign, vowing to continue its ‘Compare the pair’ project.
In a statement issued yesterday, ISA stood its ground, claiming that “Australian consumers will still be able to ‘Compare the pair’ to look at the performance of super funds”.
The ISA statement also levels blame against the “big, bank-owned funds” for colluding to “get ‘Compare the pair’ off the air”, arguing that the retail funds sector would “better serve Australians by lifting their investment returns”.
