In its latest report to December 2024, the financial database says it is important to recognise that while the SMSF sector has surpassed $1 trillion in assets over the last two quarters, this figure is the gross assets, not net assets.
“After subtracting borrowings and other liabilities, current net assets total $981 billion, slightly down on the September quarter, which was at $988 billion,” Colin Williams, founder of Wealth Data, said.
He said the latest statistics show that SMSF opportunity is slowing for existing advisers due to the number of advisers, which has steadied, combined with a slowing growth of SMSFs and assets.
“For this quarter, there is potentially a total of 41.26 SMSFs per adviser compared to 40.61 last quarter. Back in Q4 2022, it was 37.77, and in Q4 2018, it was only 20.40.”
“In terms of assets, there is a potential of $63.40 million per adviser, slightly down from $63.75 million of last quarter. In the last quarter of 2018, it was only $22.25 million.”
Williams said the statistics also show that the rate of SMSF establishments is still strong, with 8,944 SMSFs established in the last quarter of 2024. In comparison, in the December quarter of 2023, there were 7,462 new establishments.
As indicated by the ATO December 2024 SMSF statistics, the quarterly rate for wind-ups was sitting at only 217, compared with 1,183 in the statistical review from December 2023. Williams noted that as wind-ups are cyclical, the number of full exits from the sector has not yet been fully reported.
Shelley Banton, head of technical for ASF Audits, said the number of exits at the end of the December 2024 quarter showed a 33 per cent decrease since the September 2024 quarter.
“However, we need to consider that these numbers haven’t been finalised yet because of the time lag between when the wind-up occurs and when the ATO receives the notification from the SMSF,” Banton said.
“On the other hand, the figure for June 2024 shows a 30 per cent decrease from June 2023 to 7,998 exits, demonstrating a definite decline in the number of funds winding up. The June 2023 statistics further show that the average period for entry to exit has increased by 9.4 per cent, with members staying in their funds for an average of 15.1 years as opposed to 13.8 years in 2022.”
The Wealth Data statistics also indicated that, as there had been a slight drop in the total net assets in the sector, the average balance per SMSF and by member has also dropped slightly from record highs, with the average SMSF balance now around $1,536,625 down from $1,564,253.
“At the member level, the average balance has also dropped to $828,345, down from $842,238 per member,” Williams said.
He added that in the December quarter new establishments were led by men at 54.5 per cent, particularly by those earning between $100,000 to $150,000 (28 per cent). Women in the same income group were the second largest contingent.
NSW had the largest share of SMSFs with 37.8 per cent, up from 32.8 per cent shown annually for 2022–23. This increase came mostly at the expense of Victoria, which fell to 27.1 per cent.
