Retirement

Clearview and trustee ETSL have raised eyebrows and confused advisers by shifting the popular WealthFoundations super and pension product to investment platform provider HUB24. “It’s like a power plant being run by a battery,” says adviser Jason Poole. “It makes no sense.”

Peoples’ notion of how they will fund their retirement habitually downplays the role of social security. Reflecting a lack of understanding about how the different income streams interact, it behoves superannuation funds to better educate their members.

The financial needs of a staggering 64 per cent of retirees sit beyond the comprehension of super funds, a new report states, because there is too much complexity involved when retirement income isn’t enough to satisfy lifestyle ambitions.

The Future Fund’s decision to take risk off the table resulted in a lacklustre return and criticism from the super sector. But advisers know the journey matters as much as the destination.

With commissions gone, financial advisers can no longer rely on swollen prices when they sell their practice according to Helen Nan. Exiting to retirement now means planning like an adviser would.

Ever since the GFC interest rates around the world have been on a trajectory to zero, which acted as a proxy tax on investing for retirement for millions. But the current economic is a whole new ball game, writes Drew Meredith.

Litigation involving estate planning and superannuation is ramping up, with major impacts on self-managed super funds, and in particular trustee obligations. Cooper Grace Ward partner Hayley Mitchell discusses key recent case law and what it means for estate planning and SMSF management.

Coalition Senator Andrew Bragg has been outspoken in his concerns about the growing power of the industry (or union) superannuation sector. Between himself and fellow Coalition member Tim Wilson MP, they are singlehandedly putting the blowtorch on a sector that avoided the worst of the Royal Commission. In a paper this week titled Competition for…

Leading equity manager Martin Currie has suggested the superannuation, advice and wealth management industry may have it all wrong, in its new research piece titled ‘Investing for a sufficient retirement income’. In the paper, chief investment officer Reece Birtles advocates for a “rethink” of the traditional risk-return-dominated approach to portfolio construction, suggesting a “sufficient income…

Magellan Financial Group (ASX: MFG) last week released its long-awaited new retirement product, called FuturePay. The product launch comes at an important time for the investment and superannuation industry in general, which has seen very little innovation or new product releases focused on delivering more sustainable retirement incomes. So, what is Magellan FuturePay? The product…

A major milestone for Pfizer On 9 November 2020, Pfizer announced that its vaccine candidate, developed in collaboration with BioNTech, was more than 90 per cent effective in preventing COVID-19 in participants without evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection in the first interim efficacy analysis. After discussion with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Pfizer…

Given the Retirement Income Panel’s work over the past year, super funds need no more motivation to answer the critical question: how can funds deliver an adequate pension to retired fund members? The question, however, can’t be answered without determining what an ‘adequate’ pension is. This ResearchBite considers how a hypothetical fund creating an income-targeted…