The SMSF Association has confirmed the popularity of investing in cryptocurrency among trustees is proof the sector is once again taking the lead with regard to innovation in the superannuation industry.
SMSF Association chief executive Peter Burgess made the observation in response to the “Voting with their super” report published by digital asset platform provider OKX Australia based on recent CoreData research.
The study found digital assets now account for $32 billion of SMSF holdings, with 46 per cent of trustees with cryptocurrency portfolio allocations admitting they chose to establish such a fund because it was a retirement savings structure that allowed them to do so.
“Right now [SMSFs] really are the only investment vehicle in the superannuation industry that gives you that direct access to digital assets down at that member level,” Burgess told attendees of an OKX pre-budget breakfast held in Sydney today.
“And this has not been the first time that we’ve seen SMSFs at the forefront of innovation. We’ve seen this time and time again in the SMSF sector.
“I can remember a time when self-managed super funds [were the only retirement savings vehicle that] used to provide access to direct equities.
“And what we’ve seen over time is the other superannuation segments, so the retail platforms and the industry funds, have [followed suit].”
According to Burgess, this role SMSFs have continuously played in the evolution of the superannuation system is what makes them so important to the retirement savings landscape.
“[SMSFs] have fostered innovation, they’ve fostered competition [and] I think we’ll see this again with digital assets,” he predicted.
Further, he indicated industry funds and retail platforms will develop their participation in the digital asset space on the back of another critical component in the financial services sector.
“I think the catalyst for that will be the financial advice profession. When we see the financial advice profession really [embrace] digital assets, that will be the catalyst for the retail platforms to evolve [and] offer access to these types of products,” he said.
Darin Tyson-Chan
Editor
Darin is the founder and publisher of Benchmark Media, an independent publishing house whose mastheads include financialobserver, selfmanagedsuper and smstrusteenews. He has been covering the financial services space for over a decade and in this time he has worked for a variety of trade publications. Darin has also written for the Money section published in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
Articles by Darin