A senior actuarial executive has compelled the sector to ensure instances of non-complying behaviour involving SMSFs, such as illegal early access of benefits, are recognised for what they are, issues relating to the greater financial services industry, and not a set of problems originating from this segment of the retirement savings space in isolation.
Speaking as a panel member at the Class Thought Leadership Breakfast at the SMSF Association National Conference 2025 recently held in Melbourne, Heffron managing director Meg Heffron noted: “When people either get scammed or take money out illegally, that is a problem for us as a sector to care about, us to engage in and us to be part of the solution.
“I get nervous when we attach high incidence of complaints and things about schemes that include an SMSF as an SMSF-exclusive problem.
“[SMSFs are] the vehicle of choice for people who are going to do dodgy things. I’d be really [concerned] if we as an industry let that translate into [the conclusion] that SMSF are the problem as opposed to [recognising] dodgy people are the problem.”
Fellow panellist SMSF Association chief executive Peter Burgess concurred with this sentiment, but suggested the sector cannot achieve this outcome by itself and the participation of the entire financial services community is required to achieve it.
“Meg’s point is a good point and we quite often get asked at the association [as to] what [we are] doing to fix these issues [or] these headwinds,” Burgess revealed.
“[But] we can’t solve these problems on our own. We are [part of the] financial services sector, [which is] a $1 trillion industry, and we need to work together with the broader financial services industry to fix these issues.
“There are certainly some things we can do in our own industry to reduce the risks of some of these things happening, but when you look at things like illegal early access, we can’t solve that problem on our own. We need the banks and other [parties] to come into play here [to help].”
