MLC announces fee cuts, family pricing for super products
As part of sweeping price cuts to fees across its Wrap and MasterKey super products, MLC Wealth will also introduce family pricing for up to four family members, which will be capped at a maximum amount.
MLC Wealth has announced a raft of price changes across its Wrap and retail MasterKey Super and Pension Fundamentals product.
Effective from 4 February, MLC Wealth stated that the administration fees for MLC’s retail Wrap Series 2 platforms will be halved to 0.15 of a percentage point per annum on the balance between $200,000 and $500,000. Administration fees for the balance above $500,000 will be cut by 40 per cent to 0.03 of a percentage point per annum.
Under the pricing changes, it has also announced that clients with up to four family members will be treated as one group, and annual administration fees will be capped at a maximum of $3,600 per superannuation family group and $3,000 per investment group.
MLC will also be lowering the administration fee for its retail MasterKey Super and Pension Fundamentals product, which will come into effect from 1 April.
For balances up to $200,000, the administration fee will be cut by 25 per cent to 0.30 of a percentage point per annum. Fees for the balance between $200,000 and $800,000 will be reduced from 0.25 of a percentage point to 0.20 of a percentage point per annum.
The flat fee for balances under $50,000 will fall from $130 to $78 per annum.
These latest changes follow MLC’s earlier decision to turn off grandfathered commissions for salaried advisers from its superannuation and investment products.
During the superannuation round of the royal commission, NAB was questioned about some of the poor disclosure around its advice fees to customers and why it continued to deduct plan service fees from its MasterKey Personal Super (MKPS) member accounts, when many of them had no link to an adviser.
NAB was also asked to explain why it did not provide full remediation costs to ASIC in writing when it was already aware of the number of clients affected by fees for no service and the total compensation amount.
MLC Wealth chief executive Geoff Lloyd said that the price changes are aimed at “winning back trust”.
“Pricing changes are an important step in showing our clients and their advisers that we have listened to them, and we are changing,” Mr Lloyd said.
“Since joining MLC Wealth in September, I have been working with my leadership team to modernise and improve our business for the benefit of our clients. The pricing changes we have announced today represent one of those reforms.”
Over the next 12 months, Mr Lloyd said that MLC will be implementing a number of initiatives across the business to ensure clients have access to competitive fees, and products and services are meeting their changing needs.
Miranda Brownlee
Miranda Brownlee is the deputy editor of SMSF Adviser, which is the leading source of news, strategy and educational content for professionals working in the SMSF sector.
Since joining the team in 2014, Miranda has been responsible for breaking some of the biggest superannuation stories in Australia, and has reported extensively on technical strategy and legislative updates.
Miranda also has broad business and financial services reporting experience, having written for titles including Investor Daily, ifa and Accountants Daily.
