Craig Stevens

Link Group and AustSafe Super, one of the nation’s top performing super funds, has successfully completed a six-month pilot of push notification alerts via their AustSafe Super member mobile app to increase awareness around employer contributions and simplify the process for members to take their super with them when changing jobs.

The pilot utilised in-built push notification functionality, developed by the Link Group, to automatically alert members when their employer has paid a contribution into their super account.

According to AustSafe Super chief executive officer, Craig Stevens, the use of push notification technology is a great tool to help bring members closer to their super.

“As a Fund, it’s really important to be able to offer our members this functionality. It will help them engage more easily and frequently with their super and they can quickly see when contributions have been paid.

“There’s also functionality within the app that gives AustSafe Super members the ability to send a pre-populated Choice form to their new employer at the click of a button, making it easy to take their super fund with them when they change jobs,” he said.

Link’s Technology and Innovation chief executive officer, Paul Gardiner, said the arrival of push notifications encouraged members’ interest in their superannuation accounts and could assist funds with retention, especially of younger members who are the most active users of smartphones and mobile apps.

Mr Gardiner said that proactively alerting members about their superannuation contributions increases awareness of superannuation balances, which is particularly critical as Link works with its clients to address member engagement, especially members with lower balances.

“Link has worked hard to develop a cost-effective mobile app solution that is available to all our clients, and we’re excited that we’ve been able to work in conjunction with AustSafe Super to pilot this new capability within the app and give their members increased visibility of their super,” he said.

Push notifications are widely considered ideal for member-based organisations, with super funds in particular looking to use technology to enhance the user experience for members.

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Craig Stevens

Global asset manager AllianceBernstein (AB) said yesterday that it has been selected by superannuation fund AustSafe Super to manage an equity risk-management overlay strategy which aims to enhance risk-adjusted investment returns for AustSafe Super’s members.

“By allocating a proportion of our international equities exposure to this overlay strategy, we believe we can improve the management of our equity portfolio without diluting conviction in the underlying investment managers or reducing the return sources we wish to target,” said AustSafe Super’s Chief Executive Officer, Craig Stevens.

“We are delighted to have been chosen by AustSafe Super to provide this service,” said Jen Driscoll, AB’s Chief Executive Officer—Australia. “We look forward to working with AustSafe Super to help their members improve risk-return outcomes in today’s challenging investment markets.”

AB’s Factor Risk Completion strategy is an equity overlay service which aims to improve risk-adjusted returns in multi-manager portfolios without reducing the potential to generate alpha.

The service applies a disciplined quantitative process combining AB’s proprietary risk and alpha models. It aims to reduce the impact of unintended common exposures and asset crowding, and to improve the balance of pay-offs across time-horizons by diversifying risk in a capital-efficient way.

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