APRA says flows to Shield, First Guardian unremarkable

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor and Publisher

10 June 2026

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has defended the fact that it did not pick up on the rapidly escalating flows to Shield and First Guardian funds arguing that they were not exceptional in terms of flows to platform-based super funds over the same period.

Under sharp questioning from NSW Labor Senator, Deborah O’Neill, and her suggestion that APRA was trying to “have it both ways”, the regulator’s chair, John Lonsdale, claimed that the flows to Shield and First Guardian did not particularly stand out.

O’Neill had asked APRA representatives appearing before the Senate Economics Committee as part of Senate Estimates to confirm whether total member assets with respect to Shield and First Guardian had grown from $25 million in 2021 to almost $1 billion in 2025

APRA confirmed the data as correct, making clear it had been collected at the trustee level for superannuation performance test purposes and for other purposes.

The regulator made clear the data had not been collected for “supervisory purposes”.

O’Neill said she could not understand how APRA could not have reacted to the data “given that money was pouring in”.

Lonsdale insisted that APRA is the prudential regulator and looks at the data from a systems point of view.

“We also have a conduct regulator and market regulator. That is not what APRA does. APRA is looking at the system and it has been that way since Wallace inquiry,” the APRA chair said.

Pressed by Senator O’Neill on the existence of the data over four years and the fact APRA “did not pick up anything that looks like a red flag”, Lonsdale replied that “Shield and First Guardian were one of about 700 products on platforms that had a similar growth trajectory or higher growth trajectory”.

Further he said that, in combination, they [Shield and First Guardian] represented a very small per centage of total assets.

Lonsdale said that to have picked the flows up would have required APRA to look “product by product” and that was something APRA did not do because the law is not configured that way.

Senator O’Neill responded that she was coming to the view that “APRA is attempting to have it both ways here”

“You’ve got the HUB24 license conditions based on insufficient oversight of platform investments – a win for APRA – yet the lack of oversight on other platforms on investments like Shield and First Guardian by Diversa, Equity Trustees and Macquarie which you’re arguing are not in your jurisdiction,” she said.

“I have concerns about that,” O’Neill said. “Australians need to know that their superannuation is safe and I am pleased to see in your opening statement that your responsibility is to hold trustees accountable to the SIS Act, I just want to see evidence of that.”

Soon to depart APRA deputy chair, Margaret Cole pointed out that documents O’Neill had been referring to had been specifically prepared by APRA in response to the Senator’s earlier question and that the data in its original form did not appear so stark.

“If we were to pull data on similar products we would probably see products equally stark or even more growth,” she said.