Key Highlights

  • Super products drew 994 breach reports in 2025–26.
  • False or misleading statements were the top issue reported.
  • Member losses from these breaches totalled $24.3 million.
  • Members with complaints should first raise them with the fund, then with AFCA.

Super products generated 994 breach reports to the corporate regulator in 2025–26, and the most common problem was false or misleading statements. The figures come from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's (ASIC) updated reportable situations data, released in October. They matter now because super funds are under heavier scrutiny after a string of collapses and enforcement actions, and because members rely on what funds tell them about fees, performance and insurance.

The headline numbers

ASIC said it received 11,838 initial reports of breaches between 1 July 2025 and 30 June 2026, "a small decrease of 490 over the prior year".

Of those, 7,673 came from Australian financial services (AFS) licensees and 4,520 from Credit licensees. ASIC notes that entities holding both licence types are counted in both categories, which is why the two numbers add to more than the total.

For Superannuation products specifically, the data shows:

  • 994 reports in total relating to super products.
  • False or misleading statements were the top issue, at 43.0% of reports.
  • 9% of reported situations resulted in customer financial loss.
  • Total customer financial loss across those situations was $24,297,870.

The super-specific breakdown is drawn from ASIC's online reportable situations dashboard, as summarised in industry analysis, rather than from ASIC's news item, which reports only the system-wide totals.

What a 'reportable situation' is

Explainer: the breach reporting regime.

Since October 2021, AFS and credit licensees, including the trustees of APRA-regulated super funds, have been required to tell ASIC about certain "reportable situations". These include significant breaches of their obligations, investigations into whether a significant breach has happened that run for more than 30 days, and serious misconduct by advisers.

Reports are generally due within 30 calendar days of the licensee first knowing, or being reckless as to whether, there are reasonable grounds to believe a reportable situation has arisen.

A report is a self-assessment by the licensee. It is not a finding by ASIC or a court that the law was broken, and the counts can change as licensees update their reports. ASIC says figures shown in earlier dashboards are point-in-time.

That means 994 is best read as a measure of what super trustees themselves flagged, not as a tally of proven wrongdoing.

Why misleading statements top the list

A "false or misleading statement" in super can cover a wide range of communications. Examples could include incorrect fee disclosures, inaccurate performance figures in member statements, website claims about Investment options, or errors in insurance information.

The dashboard figures do not show how many members were affected by each report, or whether a misstatement was small or serious.

What the data does show is concentration: more than four in every ten super product reports, at 43.0%, fell into this single category.

That matters because super is a product most members do not actively manage. Many people rarely read their statements, and they depend on the fund to describe fees, investment Options and insurance cover accurately. When information is wrong, members may not notice for years.

Of the 994 super reports, 9% involved a financial loss to customers. Because the percentage is rounded, that equates to roughly 90 reports.

The combined loss across those situations was $24,297,870. Losses of this kind are typically remediated by the trustee, although the dashboard figure does not say how much has already been repaid.

For a system that ASIC's prudential counterpart APRA says holds about $3.4 trillion in APRA-regulated funds, $24.3 million is small in aggregate. For an individual member whose account was underpaid or overcharged, it can still matter.

The Mercer case: what happens when reports are not made

The breach reporting rules have teeth. On 29 June 2026, ASIC announced that the Federal Court had ordered Mercer Super to pay $10.3 million in penalties over failures to report investigations into significant breaches.

According to ASIC, seven investigations went unreported, including one involving a failure to allocate $64 million of member funds.

ASIC Deputy Chair Sarah Court said at the time: "This was not an isolated oversight."

The case shows that the regulator treats the reporting obligation itself as a core compliance duty, separate from whatever caused the original problem.

It also helps explain why trustees may err on the side of lodging. A report that turns out to involve a minor issue carries far less risk than a significant breach that goes unreported, and the Mercer penalty sends a clear signal about which side of that line ASIC expects funds to be on.

Why super trustees are under the microscope

The breach data lands as regulators turn up the pressure on the sector. APRA Chair John Lonsdale told a Senate committee on 29 October that APRA's latest reforms are the next phase of its focus on "lifting investment governance standards across the superannuation industry, particularly within the platform Trustee segment".

Platform trustees host investment menus that can include options chosen by financial advisers. Many members whose super was steered into the Shield and First Guardian schemes, which later collapsed, invested through platform super products, which is part of why that part of the industry is in focus.

For members, the practical point is visibility. Members cannot see the individual breach reports their fund lodges, as the dashboard shows only aggregated data.

Members can, however:

  • Compare annual statements against fees and balances they expect.
  • Ask the fund about any remediation letter, which usually explains what went wrong and how a payment was calculated.
  • Complain to the fund first and, if unresolved, to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA), which handles super complaints.

What to watch: key dates

  • Coming months: further ASIC enforcement outcomes in super, including actions linked to the Shield and First Guardian collapses.
  • Ongoing: updates to ASIC's reportable situations dashboard, as licensees revise their reports.
  • 2026–27: APRA's proposed strengthening of trustee investment governance, which is under consultation.
  • Next financial year: whether the super product report count, the share of misleading-statement reports and member losses rise or fall in the 2026–27 data.

ASIC's dashboard allows the data to be filtered by product, issue and licensee type, and is the most complete public picture of what super trustees themselves report going wrong.