SMSF satisfaction levels ‘turning a corner’

Roy Morgan said it appears satisfaction levels are “turning a corner” after declining during the worst months of the pandemic.

SMSFs saw the largest increase, with satisfaction increasing by 1.5 percentage points to a satisfaction level of 65.3 per cent in October.

“However, it’s worth noting SMSFs have had the largest year-over-year decline, [with satisfaction levels] dropping 10.4 percentage points from 75.4 per cent a year ago,” said the research company.

Public sector funds increased their customer satisfaction by 1.3 percentage points to 71.5 per cent and for the fifth month in a row have had the highest rating.

“In May 2020, public sector funds and SMSFs had an equal highest customer satisfaction of 72.6 per cent and before then SMSFs had the highest rating for most of the previous two years since July 2018,” Roy Morgan said.

Industry super funds and retail super funds also saw increases in the month of October, with satisfaction increasing by 0.4 of a percentage point to 62.5 per cent and 0.1 of a percentage point to 53.6 per cent, respectively.

Roy Morgan chief Michele Levine said there has been positive news on the economic front, with the latest Australian GDP figures for the September 2020 quarter showing an Australian economy returning to growth with a GDP increase of 3.3 per cent, the largest quarterly increase for more than 40 years.

“The growth in GDP came despite the Victorian economy spending almost the entire quarter in a second lockdown which only ended in late October,” Ms Levine said.

“In further positive news, the latest APRA figures on superannuation withdrawal requests show fewer than half of the initial 3.4 million applications for a withdrawal in the period to June 30, 2020 have followed up with a second application for a withdrawal since then. A total of $35.3 billion has now been disbursed under the scheme, but less than 10 per cent of that money has been paid out since the end of August.”