Super Alert – 13 February 2026: New Bills introduced to Parliament, ASIC report re FC decision on AFS licensee cybersecurity failures, ATO published reminders for super trustees

Welcome to the weekly KHQ Super Alert. This week several new Bills were introduced to Parliament which seek to amend the bodies governing Australia’s financial reporting system and also to update current superannuation tax concession settings. ASIC reported on a recent Federal Court decision which handed down penalties to an AFS licensee for cybersecurity failures. The ATO published various reminders for superannuation trustees, including guidance for undertaking fund transfers.

Parliament – Bill proposing changes to Australia’s financial reporting system introduced

On 12 February 2026, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Financial Reporting System Reform) Bill 2026 was introduced to the House of Representatives. As noted in our Super Alert of 7 November 2025, Treasury consulted on the draft version of this Bill late last year with the aim to develop ‘more flexible institutional arrangements’ for the setting of external reporting standards by establishing a dedicated board of experts for ‘the development and ongoing maintenance of the new sustainability standards, but also to better position the financial reporting system to respond to standard-setting needs that may arise in the future’.

According to the Explanatory Memorandum the Bill proposes to establish a new body called External Reporting Australia, to be formed by the merger of the Financial Reporting Council, the Australian Accounting Standards Board and the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board, which will be given ‘responsibility for performing core financial reporting and sustainability standard-setting functions’.

Click here and here for details.

Federal Court – Decision in relation to time extension for appealing AFCA decision

On 12 February 2026, the Federal Court published its decision in Henschke v Australian Retirement Trust [2026] FCA 80. The applicant was considering whether to commence an appeal against an AFCA determination made on 16 January 2025, however was out of time and therefore sought an extension of time to file the appeal. For various reasons, the application was rejected by the Court and the applicant was ordered to pay the legal costs of the trustee (AFCA had filed a submitting appearance).

Click here for details.

Parliament – Bill proposing changes to tax concessions for large superannuation balances introduced

On 11 February 2026, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Building a Stronger and Fairer Super System) Bill 2026 and Superannuation (Building a Stronger and Fairer Super System) Imposition Bill 2026 were introduced to the House of Representatives. As noted in our Super Alert of 30 January 2026, Treasury consulted on the draft versions of these Bills last month.

According to the Explanatory Memorandum, the Bills propose to:

• ‘reduce the tax concessions available to individuals with [total superannuation balances] exceeding the large superannuation balance threshold, which is $3 million for the 2026-27 income year’;
• reduce the tax concessions available to ‘individuals with a [total superannuation balance] exceeding the very large superannuation balance threshold, which is $10 million for the 2026-27 income year’; and
• increase the eligibility threshold for the Low Income Superannuation Tax Offset (LISTO) and otherwise ‘aligning the LISTO with broader income tax and superannuation settings’.

Click here, here and here for details.

ATO – Successor fund and intra fund transfer guidance published

On 11 February 2026, the ATO published practical guidance for superannuation trustees who are intending to carry out a successor fund transfer (SFT) or intra-fund transfer (IFT).  The headline advice in the guidance is for trustees to engage with the ATO early in the SFT/IFT process to ensure it can provide trustees with tailored support.

The ATO stressed the adverse impacts on members’ data where transfers were not conducted correctly and noted the significant risk posed to the integrity of member data held by the funds. The guidance also recommends that any transfers should be undertaken outside of ‘critical dates such as the end of the financial year to minimise impacts to members and employers’.

The guidance follows an update to the SFT and IFT reporting protocols which ‘provides information and guidance to super providers and suppliers reporting SFTs and IFTs’.

Click here for details.

APRA – Chair’s speech to Senate Economics Legislation Committee

On 11 February 2026, APRA published the opening statements of its Chair, John Lonsdale, to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee. The speech sets out at a high-level APRA’s work completed over the previous year and its intended focus for 2026.

Specifically, Mr Lonsdale noted the following:

• due to ‘the frequency and intensity of cyber-attacks across the financial system remaining elevated, lifting cyber security policies and practices across [APRA] regulated industries’ remains a top priority for the regulator;
• APRA will continue to work with entities to ‘assess potential risks from concentrations of third-party service providers’; and
• in 2025 ‘APRA undertook a substantial review of the major platform trustees who, collectively, represent approximately 95 per cent of funds under management for platform products… The review identified weaknesses in the practices of some trustees. The gaps were in areas such as onboarding practices, monitoring of investment options, and remedial action where member outcomes are not being delivered’.

Click here for details.

Treasury – Consultation proposing changes to oversight and governance of managed investment schemes released

On 10 February 2026, Treasury released a consultation paper titled Enhancing oversight and governance of managed investment schemes. According to a related media release from the Hon Dr Daniel Mulino MP, Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services, the consultation paper is the first tranche of the Government’s ‘broader agenda to strengthen consumer protections in the superannuation and financial services sectors’ and seeks feedback on ‘ways to strengthen the governance and oversight of managed investment schemes’.

While most of the proposals are specifically aimed at managed investment schemes and their compliance plan and governance requirements, one of the proposals relates to enhancing ASIC’s visibility of superannuation switching. This is proposed to be achieved by placing ‘an obligation on superannuation trustees to report to ASIC suspicious or anomalous patterns of behaviour, which the trustee reasonably considers could place their membership at risk of significant detriment’.

These behaviours might be identified as part of ‘[a]dvice-fee deductions from a specific adviser or licensee…[t]hird-party authorisations initiated by a specific adviser or licensee…[or]…[s]witching requests from vulnerable cohorts (such older members or individuals with lower-balances) to potentially inappropriate or higher-risk environments, such as SMSFs’.

The consultation period closes on 27 February 2026.

Click here and here for details.

ATO – Reminder to review authorisations, permissions and details published

On 10 February 2026, the ATO published practical guidance reminding superannuation trustees to keep authorisations, permissions and fund details up to date. The ATO recommends that each of the following actions be undertaken:

• principal authorities or authorisation administrators should use the Relationship Authorisation Manager (RAM) to ‘check who is authorised to act on behalf of the fund’;
• current permissions for those authorised to ‘access Online services for business and the Australian Business Register’ are reviewed and managed, ‘particularly where access to secure information is involved’; and
• ABN details, and associate and contact details are kept up to date, with updates required to be made within 28 days of a change occurring.

Click here for details.

ASIC – Pecuniary penalties ordered against AFS licensee for cyber security failures

On 9 February 2026, ASIC published a media release in relation to a Federal Court decision which ordered an AFS licensee to pay a $2.5 million penalty together with a further $500,000 towards ASIC’s costs for cyber security failures that occurred between March 2019 and June 2023. The judgment is not publicly available, however ASIC noted that the order is the ‘first time the Federal Court has imposed civil penalties for cyber security failures under the general AFS licensee obligations’.

According to ASIC, some of the cybersecurity failures which led to the Court’s decision included that the licensee did not:

• ‘allocate the necessary financial resources to have suitably qualified and experienced people available, or implement adequate technological resources to manage cyber security’;
• ‘implement adequate cyber security measures, including multi-factor authentication for remote access users, strong passwords and access controls for privileged accounts, appropriate configuration of firewalls and security software, regular penetration testing and vulnerability scanning’;
• ‘have a structured plan to ensure key software systems were being updated to address security vulnerabilities’; or
• ‘have an appropriate cyber incident response plan that was tested at least annually.’

ASIC reports that the failures ‘worsened a 2023 cyber-attack which saw around 385 gigabytes of confidential information stolen and highly sensitive client data leaked onto the dark web’.

Click here for details.

Parliament – Bill banning certain superannuation advertising referred to Senate Economics Legislation Committee

On 5 February 2026, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Supporting Choice in Superannuation and Other Measures) Bill 2025 was referred to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report. As referred to in our Super Alert of 28 November 2025, the purpose of the Bill is to make a range of changes to financial services laws, including the following superannuation-related changes:

• ‘provide greater flexibility for when an employer, or their agent, may request details of an employee’s stapled superannuation fund from the [ATO], so the employer, or their agent, can provide those details to the employee during onboarding to inform the employee’s choice of fund’; and
• ban ‘advertising of certain superannuation products to new employees as part of the onboarding process. The ban will reduce the risk that employees are induced or influenced to choose a superannuation product that is not appropriate to their needs or results in opening of unnecessary multiple superannuation accounts during the onboarding process.’

The Committee’s report is due on 4 March 2026.

Click here for details.

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