The Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) published their 2025 Retirement Income Covenant (RIC) Pulse Check report, finding that trustees’ implementation of retirement income strategies remains uneven more than three years after the RIC commenced. The report warns the gap is widening between trustees actively improving retirement outcomes for members and those making only incremental changes, and calls on all trustees to lift practices in line with the better-practice expectations set out in the report. The RIC, in force since 1 July 2022 under the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993, requires trustees to develop a retirement income strategy for members approaching or in retirement that addresses how members will be assisted to balance maximising income, managing expected risks and having flexible access to funds. ASIC highlighted the scale of the retirement cohort, citing over 1.5 million Australians already in retirement, a further 2.5 million expected to enter retirement over the next decade, and almost AUD 600 billion in retiree savings under trustee stewardship, with two in five trustees expected to have more than half their members in retirement by 2045; ASIC and APRA will also provide individual feedback to trustees. Alongside supervisory follow-up, ASIC will continue updating its Moneysmart guidance and tools on superannuation and retirement, while both regulators will continue engaging with Treasury on retirement phase initiatives, including the proposed Best Practice Principles for Retirement Income Solutions and the Retirement Reporting Framework. APRA also reiterated its commitment to include retirement products in the 2026 Comprehensive Product Performance Package.

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