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ARTICLE · 24 AUGUST 2026

New Protections In The Superannuation System

K&L Gates
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The Australian Government has unveiled comprehensive reforms targeting consumer protections across superannuation and financial services, introducing stricter oversight of APRA-regulated funds, SMSFs, and managed investment schemes. These changes respond to recent high-profile investment failures and include enhanced trustee obligations, strengthened anti-hawking provisions, and modifications to the financial advice framework that could significantly impact compliance requirements for industry participants.

AustraliaEmployment and HR
Daniel Knight
Daniel Knight
Jocelyn Lau
Jocelyn Lau

The Government has announced reforms to strengthen consumer protections and the resilience of the superannuation and financial system. These changes are being made in response to high profile investment failures but may lead to increased compliance costs for providers.

The reforms have been announced in a Treasury fact sheet, which will presumably be followed by consultation on the measures.

Protections for Members of APRA-Regulated Superannuation Funds

There will be an obligation on trustees to set and ensure compliance with caps on advice fees deducted from member accounts, and the civil penalty for breaches of core trustee obligations will increase to 50,000 penalty units (from 2,400). APRA will be granted power to set capital requirements for trustees offering “higher-risk investment options”. This could see superannuation platform trustees being subject to higher capital requirements. It is not yet clear if, and how, this would apply in the context of not-for-profit trustees.

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