ASIC finds super trustees failed at complaints handling

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission revealed that Australian superannuation trustees failed at the governance and leadership level regarding complaints handling across 23.2 million member accounts.

During the 2025–26 financial year, 45 trustees recorded 257,544 complaints while nearly one-quarter failed to analyse this data regularly for systemic issues.

"Blaming the customer is not a complaint strategy, and that gives a real insight into a complaints management culture and a risk culture of an organisation," said ASIC Commissioner Simone Constant.

The regulator noted that 60% of trustees attributed the root cause of complaints to members, while 45% of trustees identified fewer than five systemic issues over two years.

Following the regulator's report, ASIC confirmed it maintains multiple active enquiries into broader member service failures across the financial sector.

The regulatory crackdown follows previous legal action against Telstra Super after the Federal Court found the trustee failed to respond to roughly one-third of complaints within required deadlines.

A penalty hearing regarding Telstra Super's complaint handling failures is scheduled in the Federal Court for Nov. 12-13.