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ASIC reviews ‘lead generators’ pushing super switching
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is reviewing financial advice licensees that use lead generation services to cold call consumers and pressure them into switching their superannuation into less regulated funds.
The regulator has published a list of known entities involved in lead generation and will investigate whether they are complying with their legal obligations. ASIC stresses that being named on the list does not indicate any wrongdoing, but warns consumers should exercise additional caution when engaging with these businesses.
ASIC commissioner Alan Kirkland warned that thousands of consumers have been misled about their current fund’s performance and convinced to switch into high-risk investments, with many losing their entire retirement savings.
Consumers are urged to hang up on unsolicited calls and watch for warning signs such as pressure to act immediately, claims their existing fund is underperforming, and promises of unrealistic returns. ASIC says it will use its full range of enforcement tools if serious harm is identified.
Learn more about protecting your super from cyber attacks and scams and how SMSFs can avoid getting scammed.
Super funds falling short on scam protection
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) says superannuation trustees need to strengthen anti-scam and fraud practices following a review that identified significant gaps in communications for members.
“Our latest review of superannuation website content confirmed that super funds often lacked clarity, accessibility and support for scam victims. When benchmarked against other industries, super funds fell short for victims,” ASIC commissioner Simone Constant said.
The review assessed scam and fraud-related website content across 47 super funds and benchmarked them against comparable website content from the big four banks. It found that while banks scored positively in over 80% of the criteria assessed, most super funds scored positively against just 40–60% of the same criteria.
“It is time for super trustees to step up and minimise scam and fraud risks to members, which according to the National Anti-Scam Centre, suffered $22 million in losses from super-related scams in 2025,” Constant said.
“Super trustees have a clear and unavoidable responsibility to oversee risk and ensure these emerging threats are identified and managed actively. Yet scam and fraud prevention, detection and response capabilities are still not sufficiently addressing risks to members,” she added.
Key areas identified for improvement were availability of relevant information, quality of information and inclusion of actionable information.
Cap on retirement account balances to increase on 1 July
The general transfer balance cap (TBC) is set to increase for the second year in a row, following a 3.8% increase in the consumer price index (CPI) over the year to December 2025.
As of 1 July, the transfer balance cap will be $2.1 million, after increasing to $2 million from $1.9 million on 1 July last year.
The transfer balance cap is the limit on how much can be transferred into retirement phase where earnings are not taxed.
Any super fund member who starts a retirement-phase income stream on or after 1 July will have a personal TBC of $2.1 million. Those who have already started an income stream will have their unused TBC proportionally indexed in line with the new cap.
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