Less than four in 10 Australians are satisfied with their age pension application process through Centrelink, with many seeking assistance or professional financial advice.

Greater attention must be given to the implementation challenges retirees face as the industry works to close the gap on developing better-tailored products and improving the education for this life-cycle stage.

For many SMSF investors, the drive to control investment for their retirement years is fuelled by the ultimate desire to control their attainment of ‘financial security’ in retirement, rather than leave it in someone else’s hands.

SMSF access to the corporate loan market is improving and provides another avenue for trustees to access stable monthly income with a low risk of capital loss, according to Metrics Credit Partners (MCP).

More than half of Australian retirees are spending less than the age pension each year, raising significant questions about current retirement policy and super fund strategies, new research by Milliman has found.

Just one in four Australians believe they will be able to live comfortably in retirement despite more people feeling better prepared for retirement, according to Investment Trends.

Family trusts are increasingly being used for retirement planning purposes since the government’s changes to superannuation, but must still be regularly updated to work with changes to the law and family circumstances.

Compulsory superannuation and compound interest will enable many working Australians to reach the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia’s (ASFA) comfortable standard of living by the time they retire, according to the association.

The rate of age pension take-up had fallen by 9 per cent since the introduction of superannuation and almost one-third of retirees were now self-funded, putting paid to the myth that compulsory super as a policy was having negligible impact on retirement incomes, according to the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA).