The financial regulator should make greater use of its powers to get superannuation funds to merge where it’s in the best interests of members, according to lobby group Industry Super Australia, Fairfax media has reported.

Speaking to The Australian Financial Review, ISA chief executive David Whiteley said the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority had the ability via the scale test to assess whether super funds have got the scale to be delivering or acting in the best interests of members.

Make funds merge, David Whiteley says. Photo: AAP

Industry super fund rivals, led by the Financial Services Council, have lobbied loudly for mergers to drive economies of scale and help bring fees down. APRA also supports such moves, but so far progress has been limited.

The scale test was introduced as part of the government’s 2012 Stronger Super reforms. “APRA’s got the capacity through the scale test, and we continue to wonder why it is not being used more,” he said.

“There are a number of factors that trustees must be looking at –- APRA’s got the powers and they should be using that. I know the capacity of a fund to act in the best interest of members is front of mind of every trustee in the not-for-profit sector,” he said.

In a 2016 submission to the Productivity Commission, APRA said it had “long had the capacity to review the scale of superannuation funds and has a long history of discussing scale with trustees”.

“The scale test was introduced in 2012 as a new obligation for trustees to attest on an annual basis that they have sufficient scale in both the fund and the MySuper product to provide investments returns that are in the best interests of MySuper members relative to members holding alternative MySuper products,” it said.