By Braydon Heape
The drive toward consolidation in the superannuation fund sector
dates at least from the last big round of compliance changes in the
middle of the last decade. This spawned the RSE Licence (a
requirement from July 2006), and a host of ancillary regulations
and prudential guides.1 It is fair to say, though, that
the enormous increase in superannuation fund mergers that this
regulatory upheaval produced was not the result of an express
policy, set out in legislation. It was simply the economic
consequence of a very large ramping-up of compliance costs.
The latest round of changes, under the umbrella of Stronger
Super 2 are different in this respect. They are
explicitly designed to promote economies of scale. For the first
time, the regulatory regime will demand that trustee boards
consider scale as part of their strategic focus. That is, economies
of scale will now be a matter of success or failure for
superannuation funds, not because good practice
