Monday, 24 July 2023
Australia’s largest digital-first super fund, Aware Super, has changed the way Australians experience superannuation transactions, with the nation’s other large funds expected to follow suit.
The migration of more than 1.1 million members onto one technology platform has cemented Aware Super as the “Super Fund of the Future” in the Australian and global pension landscape.
The migration, which saw the phasing out of paper-based legacy systems to the Bravura Sonata Alta platform, has set up Aware Super to become “Super Helpful” in delivering exceptional member services while also cutting costs and fees.
Aware Super’s Chief Executive Officer, Deanne Stewart, said the digital transformation was integral to enabling the $160 billion fund to fully realise the benefits of the scale achieved through the mergers of First State Super, VicSuper, WA Super, and StatePlus – and had delivered the operating model blueprint for the nation’s superannuation industry.
“Superannuation and pension funds are long overdue for digital transformation,” said Ms Stewart. “To stay competitive and meet new regulations they need to give members the kind of intuitive digital experience consumers now expect everywhere else in the global economy.
“The key prize we’ve achieved for Aware Super members is a single platform that allows us to personalise and control the member experience from end-to-end so that they can now transact and get help digitally for all their needs.
“This gives us unprecedented ability to help members how they need, when they need, whenever they want, by providing a simple and intuitive interface, sight of all their investments, and more control – but at a lower cost to serve.
“In doing so, we've brought super into the 21st century and now provide the seamless real-time service experiences Australians expect and currently have in other facets of their life.”
Bravura Interim Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Russell, said the world’s pension funds were grappling with balancing the complexity of retirement schemes together with the need to improve the member experience, ensure security and provide advice to members – all while lowering the cost to serve.
“Working together with Aware Super, we’ve successfully managed to deliver on those benefits while lowering costs using our Sonata Alta BPaaS (Business Process as a Service) platform,” he said.
Members will also have more direct oversight of their superannuation and control over their retirement planning through a digital portal that will include real-time, 24/7 ’parcel tracking’ of Page 2 their transactions, and a reduction in transaction processing times of literally weeks for transactions such as hardship claims.
Ms Stewart said Aware Super was now uniquely positioned in the Australian market to be the “Fund of the Future”.
“Reaching this milestone really establishes that large-scale digital transformation is not only possible in superannuation – it’s an essential step for any large fund that intends to support members over the next three decades,” said Ms Stewart.
“This project is evidence of Aware Super’s deep experience of safely delivering large, complex changes. Our foundational merger between First State Super and VicSuper was the largest in the industry at the time, and delivering this transformation is a further celebration of our team’s expertise in safely delivering highly complex projects successfully.
“Like other large financial institutions, we’re striving to move faster against the backdrop of fintech start-ups and heightened customer expectations, despite the super industry being a long-term, typically low-touch point service for members.
“With this uplift, we are now providing our members with a digital experience rivalling the best day-to-day apps people use on their phones, from streaming services to online shopping. We can now be ‘Super Helpful’ for our members in many more ways, for example by rapidly processing transactions digitally – without the need to fill out and post paper forms – and by allowing members to track the progress of their service requests online in real time.”
By the numbers
Aware Super
- $160 billion funds under management (FUM)
- Four heritage funds: FirstState Super, VicSuper, WA Super, StatePlus
- 1.1 million members
- 1 million members in accumulation
- 100,000 members in pension
- Approximately two-thirds of our members are women
Digital transformation
- 854,000 accounts migrated from external administrator to new in-house platform
- 1.5 billion transactions migrated
- 50+million documents migrated
- 1,300 business requirements delivered
- 85% reduction1 in calls to help reset passwords
- Around 25% reduction1 in calls for help retrieve member numbers
- Around 20% reduction1 in calls seeking help to fill in forms
- 97%* of transactions now available digitally rather than via paper form
1 Performance figures based on 12 months’ data from stage 1 of member migration, ~250,000 VicSuper members in March 2022