During our recent FY2024 Annual Members’ Meetings across the Insignia Financial Group’s trustee super funds, members asked a wide range of questions. We've narrowed them down to the top three most popular questions. Read on to see what’s on our members’ minds.

The answers provided reflect the presentations by the panellists during the meetings.
 

1. What security measures are in place to protect my super from hackers and scammers?

This issue is front of mind for us and I’m sure for all of our members as well.

We are committed to protecting our members personal information and money against the rising threat of cyber-crime. We have a range of security measures in place that are guided by industry best practice, as well as meeting our regulatory and legislative requirements.

Measures such as multi-factor authentication, encryption of data and firewalls. We also have intrusion detection systems and cyber threat intelligence monitoring. So we monitor for malicious activity through a 24/7 security operations centre. And we're continuing to evolve and to test our security capabilities, including those that are administered by third parties and we also consider the threat of emerging issues such as the use of AI by criminals.

Lastly, for your information, we’ve launched a Cyber Security & Scam Awareness web page with tips for staying safe online which we encourage you to check out. Visit https://www.mlc.com.au/cyber-security
 

2. How much super do I need for a comfortable retirement?

You can generally access your super from preservation age, which is 60, regardless of gender, but depending on when you were born, it's a sliding scale. Many people do retire within that age bracket, but at the end of the day, the right age to retire depends on your personal circumstances. But to give you some guidance, the ASFA Retirement Standard September quarter 2024 detailed budget breakdown suggested the fortnightly expenditure for a single person aged 65 to 84 living a comfortable lifestyle is $1,986. And for a couple it's $2,798.

According to ASFA, the estimated budgets assume that you own your house outright and you're relatively healthy.

In contrast, the Age Pension payment, which is subject to an income and assets test, the maximum basic rate per fortnight for a single person is just $1,047 and for a couple is just $1,578. And that assumes we're excluding some additional pension and energy supplements.

So those numbers demonstrate that Age Pension alone might not be enough, and it's really important for you to plan and to have a plan for retirement so you can think about what your particular needs are going to be. So with this in mind, it's a big question that has a complex answer.

We think that financial advice can help you create a retirement plan that suits you and your lifestyle goals, and what sort of retirement you would like to have, and make sure that together, your super, the pension and your other investments are all working together hard for you as you enter that retirement phase.

If you have an adviser, please go speak to them. If you don't have one, we can offer access to general advice over the phone, at no additional cost. We've got a variety of tools and services that can support you as you approach retirement, including quarterly newsletters, webinars, seminars, digital tools, calculators, that together can help you to better understanding your financial situations.
 

3. Do we have plans to begin offering access to cryptocurrency investment opportunities?

It is a popular topic, and I guess how I’d answer that question is we're keeping a close eye and an open mind on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but at the moment we really view Bitcoin as a not now rather than a not ever sort of situation.

And you know, this decision really aligns with our investment philosophy and process which really carefully, assesses and considers risks, benefits of assets we want to include in our portfolio. Some big global financial players are getting involved in Bitcoin for a whole range of reasons. But we don't think simply following the crowd, is always the right move. And we believe it's really important, to come to our own conclusions through own research and analysis.

Bitcoin advocates often point to the strong past performance of Bitcoin. However, as we know, past performance is no guarantee of future performance. And so we don't see owning Bitcoin solely on the basis of its past good performance as a good argument to put it in the portfolio. One argument against Bitcoin is its extreme performance volatility or swings in performance.

If we look past back over the past decade, bitcoin has suffered peak to trough falls of more than 50% on multiple occasions. And over the past three years alone, it's been about four times more volatile than the US stock market. So pretty volatile. On top of this high volatility, we're not yet convinced Bitcoin is a good diversifier which consistently demonstrates low correlation to other investments we hold in the portfolio.

Bitcoin does appear to move with market sentiment, particularly in markets where exuberance is correlated to market movements. At the end of the day, Bitcoin is speculative. Its value really comes from what the next person is willing to pay for it. And that's unlike shares or many other investments.

It doesn't produce cash flow, dividends or anything we can use to value in a traditional method. And similarly, Bitcoin is not yet widely accepted as a medium of exchange like the US dollar. So at the moment, it's just based on the hope that someone in the future is willing to pay a higher price for it.
 

Looking for more Q&A?

Watch our Annual Members’ Meeting and jump to the Q&A segment at the 18:10 mark, or read our responses on our website.