Mrs Rowell is currently the Executive General Manager of APRA’s Supervisory Support Division. Mrs Rowell joined APRA in 2002 and has been employed in a number of senior roles including General Manager, Diversified Institutions Division and General Manager Policy Development.

Mrs Rowell has represented APRA at various subcommittees of the International Association of Insurance Supervisors. She also represents APRA on the FSB’s Supervisory Intensity and Effectiveness Group and co-Chairs the Joint Forum Financial Conglomerates Committee.

APRA Chairman John Laker welcomed Mrs Rowell’s appointment: ‘Helen brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the position of APRA Member from her 10 years in senior roles within APRA and also from her extensive experience in the private sector.’

Prior to joining APRA, Mrs Rowell was a partner at the international consulting firm Towers Perrin (now Towers Watson), and she is also a Fellow and past President of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia.

The announcement can be found on the Treasurer’s website.

Today’s announcement follows changes, announced in April this year, to APRA’s Executive Group. It was announced APRA’s Deputy Chairman Ross Jones would not be seeking re-appointment and would leave APRA on 30 June 2013 after serving two five-year terms, and that APRA Member Ian Laughlin would be appointed Deputy Chairman for two years from 1 July 2013.

It was also announced at that time that Wayne Byres, former APRA Executive General Manager and currently Secretary General to the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, will commence as APRA Chairman on 30 June 2014 with John Laker continuing to serve as APRA Chairman until that time.

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APRA’s proposed reporting requirements implement the transparency and accountability recommendations from the Government’s Stronger Super reforms, and the proposals APRA previously consulted on in 2009. The proposed new requirements also support the implementation of prudential standards, MySuper products and SuperStream. These proposed revisions will be the first changes to the reporting requirements for superannuation since 2004.

The main proposed changes to reporting requirements include: information about each trustee, fund, sub-fund, MySuper product and select choice investment options. This replaces the focus at fund level in the current data collection and responds to previous industry commentary on the limitations of APRA’s fund-level superannuation reporting; information about investment returns for each MySuper product and select choice investment options.

This will allow greater comparability across the industry, particularly between MySuper products; and the collection of expanded information about investments, including looking through investment structures to identify and understand ultimate investment asset allocation and costs.

APRA Deputy Chairman Ross Jones said APRA is proposing material changes to the superannuation data collection. ‘Overall, APRA expects that this new data collection will be of significant benefit to all industry stakeholders by providing greater transparency of investments and costs.’

‘As with the introduction of prudential standards for superannuation, these proposals are raising the bar to bring the superannuation data collection to a level that is consistent with the other industries APRA regulates,’ he said.

This consultation package outlines a substantially larger data collection than is currently in place for the superannuation industry. APRA acknowledges the extensive scope of the proposals and encourages industry to provide feedback as to how the proposed data collection would best support objectives of transparency and comparability across the industry, as well as APRA’s prudential supervision.

Consultation on the draft reporting requirements closes on 16 November 2012 and the final superannuation reporting standards are expected to be determined and released in the first half of 2013. The requirements in the final reporting standards are expected to take effect from 1 July 2013 with the first publication using the new data in late 2013.

The discussion paper and the 31 draft reporting forms and instructions can be found on the APRA website.

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Total estimated assets, which includes the assets of self-managed superannuation funds and the balance of life office statutory funds, rose by $49.6 billion (3.7 per cent) to $1.40 trillion over the 12 months to 30 June 2012, taking into account an increase of $3.8 billion (0.3 per cent) in total assets over the June quarter.

Over the June quarter, the total estimated assets of public sector funds’ assets increased by 1.9 per cent ($4.1 billion) to $222.2 billion, industry funds increased by 0.6 per cent ($1.5 billion) to $266.0 billion, retail funds’ assets decreased by 1.3 per cent ($4.7 billion) to $372.1 billion and corporate funds’ assets decreased by 2.0 per cent ($1.1 billion) to $55.8 billion.

Contributions to funds with at least $50 million in assets over the June quarter were $29.9 billion, with employers contributing $24.2 billion and members contributing $5.6 billion. Other contributions, including spouse contributions and government co-contributions, totalled $141 million.

During the June quarter, public sector funds received 38.2 per cent ($11.4 billion) of total contributions, retail funds 30.9 per cent ($9.2 billion), industry funds 27.5 per cent ($8.2 billion) and corporate funds 3.4 per cent ($1.0 billion).

Outward rollovers exceeded inward rollovers in the June quarter. Industry funds received $151 million of net rollovers. Corporate, public sector and retail funds had negative net rollovers of $477 million, $728 million and $762 million, respectively.

The annual industry-wide Rate of Return (ROR) for quarterly reporting funds for the year ending 30 June 2012 was 0.4 per cent. The quarterly industry-wide ROR for the June 2012 quarter was -1.4 per cent. The quarterly RORs for each fund type as a whole for the June 2012 quarter were -0.9 per cent for public sector funds, -1.2 per cent for industry funds, -1.5 per cent for corporate funds and -1.8 per cent for retail funds.

A copy of the publication is available on APRA’s website  – click here.

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