The SMSF Association has announced it will establish a global centre of excellence for retirement savings, the body’s first major initiative under new chief executive John Maroney, who came on board in May.
“As the SMSF Association, we intend to lead the SMSF sector into the future by showing its integrity and robustness, and by providing trusted information, education, policy positions and standards,” Maroney said at the peak industry body’s Technical Day in Sydney yesterday.
“As part of this strategy, we intend to establish a global centre of excellence for retirement savings – one of my first major initiatives since becoming chief executive.
“This will provide a focus for thought leadership and a policy think tank in key growth areas such as retirement income design and drawdown, behavioural economics and key investment issues such as infrastructure.”
He added the association had recently commenced discussions with several universities, including the University of Adelaide, Monash University, University of Western Australia, Curtin University, University of New South Wales and Macquarie University.
“Our intention is to establish an academic advisory group to help support the development of our global centre of excellence,” he revealed.
“We expect this academic advisory group to be set up and running later this year and for the global centre to commence next year.
“This is one exciting development and I expect to announce others over the months ahead.”
Commenting on the ongoing complexities of the superannuation changes faced by SMSF practitioners, he said trustees and members were demanding more and more advice from SMSF specialists in order to cope.
“The need to be on top of your game to meet the growing needs of your clients has never been more important,” he noted.
Shortly after commencing in May, Maroney revealed to selfmanagedsuper that he would continue to execute the association’s vision as he settled into the role.
At the time, he said it was too early for him to make any changes or execute any new initiatives as he was purely in a “listening and testing phase”.
