Friday, 11 August 2023
Members of Australia’s largest digital-first industry super fund have embraced the move from paper forms to automated, same-day digital transactions, with most of Aware Super’s transactions across May, June and July now being completed online.
Having recently completed the third major delivery of the fund’s industry-leading digital transformation project, Chief Operating Officer, Jo Brennan, said the learnings and insights from digitalisation projects across other industries had helped guide the fund to deliver instant benefits to members.
“Our million plus Aware Super members are now living in a digital super world,” said Ms Brennan.
“That means the majority of our member transactions that used to require a paper form have been replaced with a simpler, faster online digital process – reducing processing times for some transactions by literally weeks.
”We want Australians to know Aware Super as Australia’s most helpful super fund, and automated same-day digital transactions is one vital step in delivering on that promise.”
Aware Super members can now complete most transactions within the fund’s secure online member portal or mobile app. More transactions will be added in coming months. This has been welcomed by members who’ve been appreciative of how simple and quick the online processes are.
Aware Super has seen a quick adoption of the new online forms with approximately half of withdrawals, hardship claims and tax notification forms already being done online.
“If you think about the way a paper-based transaction needs to happen, you’re looking at a slow, manual process. You need to download a form, fill it in, get it to a post box, transport it to the fund’s administrator, where another person then re-enters all the information at the other end. It’s not the level of efficiency that Australians have come to rely on right across the economy in this digital age,” said Ms Brennan.
”Not only do you have the physical delay of waiting for the post to arrive, you’re also introducing additional risk of error by having the information entered twice. Moving that transaction into a digital environment means the information gets entered once and verified before being submitted, before it’s then processed, effectively instantaneously via the internet.
”Handling times and risk of errors are reduced, and members’ personal security is improved by getting rid of physical forms that hold their personal information.
”The shift to digital transactions literally takes weeks off the time it used to take for a member to get the outcome they’re after, which is especially valuable for transactions like investment switching, withdrawals or hardship claims.”