‘Concerning’ super expenditure issues detected by APRA

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) will this week publish the results of its data dive into superannuation fund expenditures but has already told a Parliamentary Committee that it has detected instances that “are concerning”.

APRA deputy chair, Margaret Cole told the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services that having noted the concerning issues, APRA has been pushing forward with its investigative work.

The regulator announced last week that it would be looking more closely at superannuation fund expenditures including around sponsorships, marketing and conferences.

Cole also noted the differences in the commercial models utilised by not for profit superannuation fund and for profit funds and the way in which expenditure occurred and is structured.

“We are agnostic about what is right and appropriate in each case,” Cole said.

Cole noted that there was “a bit of noise about some items of expenditure in one sector” and said she “it is not all about that”.

“However, when you see the data and you start to look for the evidence what we are going to do is triage some of those areas by following the evidence,” she said.

Later, under questioning from Federal Liberal, Garth Hamilton, Cole said that while the discretionary expenditures being investigated by APRA could be regarded as relatively small in the context of large superannuation, it needed to be understood by the funds that “they are spending other people’s money”.

She said that while the amounts in question might be relatively small, there was “a far bigger point at stake”

Cole said that what APRA was doing was not a “witch hunt” but an exercise in shining a light for the benefit of all.