Wednesday, 27 April 2022
- More than 1 million members to migrate into new digital environment
- Investment in digital transformation will replace paper-based processing for 90% of member transactions
- New My Activities feature will show real-time progress update for member transactions
Filling in a paper form and posting it to your super fund has just become a distant memory for hundreds of thousands of VicSuper members. The former fund for the Victorian public service, VicSuper is now part of Aware Super, one of Australia’s largest funds with more than one million members and $155 billion in funds under management.
In a seamless transition that would dwarf some industry mergers, this cohort of Aware Super’s membership had their accounts moved this week, into a new digital environment – one that has been purpose-built to enable previously unachievable levels of self-service for VicSuper members.
As a result more than 90 per cent of member transactions will have traditional, paper-based processes replaced with online transactions that will slash processing times for members, in some cases by a matter of weeks.
One example of the improvements is a reduction in processing times for hardship claims, which historically can take 2-3 weeks for funds to arrive in a member’s bank account, to a turnaround of 1-2 business days.
Aware Super CEO Deanne Stewart said the changes were only possible due to the scale achieved through the fund’s recent history of successful mergers.
“Super fund mergers need to deliver tangible benefits to their members,” said Ms Stewart.
“The early benefits to flow to members from our recent mergers focused on quick wins such as lowering administration fees by 20 per cent for VicSuper members, lowering fees for our pension members, or lowering insurance costs for our WA Super members.
“The major enhancements we’re announcing today are the next step in us doing even better for members. At Aware Super we believe the future of super demands we rethink – from the ground up – how a member’s experience of their super fund should be designed
“We’re putting each member in the driver’s seat for their own personal journey to, and through, retirement, and our goal is to deliver an experience that makes each member feel as though the fund has been built just for them.
“We’ve spent nearly two years working towards these changes, which will dramatically reduce processing times for common transactions, and provide a level of self-service for members that’s similar to what they’re used to with online banking or shopping.
“Just one example is our My Activities feature, which takes inspiration from the parcel-tracking function offered by many online retailers.
“Through the new VicSuper app and online member portal, members will be able to monitor the progress of their transactions in real time, which helps provide invaluable peace of mind for complex transactions such as insurance claims.
“We’re backing that up with enhancements to how our service teams operate, which we began rolling out in a pilot phase earlier this year.
“We’ve already seen members reporting improvements in how easy we’re making it for them to get the support they need from our teams, which highlights the importance of making sure we put the member first in the design of both the online and offline systems we’ve been building.”
In 2020 VicSuper, the fund for the Victorian public service, merged with its NSW equivalent, First State Super, in what was then the largest superannuation fund merger ever undertaken. This merger was followed by mergers with WA Super (December 2020) and the Victorian Independent Schools Superannuation Fund, VISSF, in November 2021.
Almost a quarter of Aware Super’s 1.1 million members will have their accounts migrated into the new digital environment by the end of April 2022. The remaining members’ accounts will be migrated through a series of stages across 2022 and early 2023, with additional features to be rolled out throughout the project’s timeline.