The Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) published a speech by Chair Joe Longo setting out a renewed supervisory and enforcement focus on superannuation trustees’ customer service governance, particularly how boards and management capture, analyse and act on member complaints. ASIC framed complaints handling as a practical test of whether trustees are genuinely acting in members’ interests and said failures in data, systems and processes can amount to non-compliance. The speech cited ASIC’s death benefits work as evidence of persistent “blind spots” in trustees’ oversight of end-to-end service performance. In that review, even the fastest trustees processed less than half of death benefit claims within three months (48%), while the slowest processed 8%, and no trustees monitored or reported end-to-end handling times or set performance objectives. ASIC linked the review to rising complaints, noting that service complaints to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority about death benefit claims more than tripled over two years, with corresponding increases in trustees’ internal dispute resolution data in 2023. ASIC reiterated that it is already an enforceable requirement to regularly analyse complaint data to identify systemic issues, and warned it will pursue enforcement where trustees fail to meet obligations including acting honestly, exercising prudent care and skill, acting in beneficiaries’ best financial interests, and providing trustee services efficiently, honestly and fairly.

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