Wednesday, 27 April 2022
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- More than 1 million members to migrate into new digital environment
- Investment in digital transformation will replace paper-based processing for 90% of member transactions
- New My Activities feature will show real-time progress update for member transactions听
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Filling in a paper form and posting it to your super fund has just become a distant memory for hundreds of thousands of VicSuper members. The former fund for the Victorian public service, VicSuper is now part of 91黑料, one of Australia鈥檚 largest funds with more than one million members and $155 billion in funds under management.
In a seamless transition that would dwarf some industry mergers, this cohort of 91黑料鈥檚 membership had their accounts moved this week, into a new digital environment 鈥 one that has been purpose-built to enable previously unachievable levels of self-service for VicSuper members.
As a result more than 90 per cent of member transactions will have traditional, paper-based processes replaced with online transactions that will slash processing times for members, in some cases by a matter of weeks.
One example of the improvements is a reduction in processing times for hardship claims, which historically can take 2-3 weeks for funds to arrive in a member鈥檚 bank account, to a turnaround of 1-2 business days.听
91黑料 CEO Deanne Stewart said the changes were only possible due to the scale achieved through the fund鈥檚 recent history of successful mergers.
鈥淪uper fund mergers need to deliver tangible benefits to their members,鈥 said Ms Stewart.
鈥淭he early benefits to flow to members from our recent mergers focused on quick wins such as lowering administration fees by 20 per cent for VicSuper members, lowering fees for our pension members, or lowering insurance costs for our WA Super members.
鈥淭he major enhancements we鈥檙e announcing today are the next step in us doing even better for members. At 91黑料 we believe the future of super demands we rethink 鈥 from the ground up 鈥 how a member鈥檚 experience of their super fund should be designed
鈥淲e鈥檙e putting each member in the driver鈥檚 seat for their own personal journey to, and through, retirement, and our goal is to deliver an experience that makes each member feel as though the fund has been built just for them.
鈥淲e鈥檝e spent nearly two years working towards these changes, which will dramatically reduce processing times for common transactions, and provide a level of self-service for members that鈥檚 similar to what they鈥檙e used to with online banking or shopping.
鈥淛ust one example is our My Activities feature, which takes inspiration from the parcel-tracking function offered by many online retailers.
鈥淭hrough the new VicSuper app and online member portal, members will be able to monitor the progress of their transactions in real time, which helps provide invaluable peace of mind for complex transactions such as insurance claims.
鈥淲e鈥檙e backing that up with enhancements to how our service teams operate, which we began rolling out in a pilot phase earlier this year.
鈥淲e鈥檝e already seen members reporting improvements in how easy we鈥檙e making it for them to get the support they need from our teams, which highlights the importance of making sure we put the member first in the design of both the online and offline systems we鈥檝e been building.鈥
In 2020 VicSuper, the fund for the Victorian public service, merged with its NSW equivalent, First State Super, in what was then the largest superannuation fund merger ever undertaken. This merger was followed by mergers with WA Super (December 2020) and the Victorian Independent Schools Superannuation Fund, VISSF, in November 2021.
Almost a quarter of 91黑料鈥檚 1.1 million members will have their accounts migrated into the new digital environment by the end of April 2022. The remaining members鈥 accounts will be migrated through a series of stages across 2022 and early 2023, with additional features to be rolled out throughout the project鈥檚 timeline.