Super Alert – 3 July 2026: APRA Financial System Risk Stress Test, ban on advertising super funds in employee onboarding, division 296 tax changes

Welcome to the weekly KHQ Super Alert. This week APRA published the results of its inaugural financial system risk stress test, along with an update to its reporting FAQs. ASIC released its review into the performance of platform superannuation trustees. A ban on advertising superannuation funds in the employee onboarding process was registered. Meanwhile, the ATO published guidance on the expectations for superannuation funds impacted by the Division 296 tax changes.

ATO – Division 296 tax changes

On 2 July 2026 and 29 June 2026, the ATO published guidance for super funds that will be impacted by the Division 296 tax changes, which will see a reduction in the tax concessions available to individuals through their super from 1 July 2026, as described in our Super Alert of 26 June 2026.

‘Regulated super funds must calculate their Division 296 fund earnings, attribute relevant super earnings to their members that have a total super balance exceeding the large super balance threshold (in-scope members) and report those members’ relevant super earnings to the ATO.’

The ATO expects that regulated super funds should be prepared for:

• Responding to requests for information via ‘Online services for business’, with the ATO expecting to issue requests to defined benefit funds in November 2027 and all other APRA-regulated funds in April 2028; and
• Division 296 Notices of Assessment for the 2026–27 income year will be issued in the second half of 2027–28.

Click here for details.

APRA – Results of Financial System Risk Stress Test released

On 30 June 2026, APRA released the findings of its inaugural System Risk Stress Test, which examined the links between the banking and superannuation systems and how a hypothetical ‘severe but plausible’ shock might impact the financial system. The test was conducted in 2025 with the four major banks and six large superannuation funds.

The scenario involved liquidity pressures exceeding those experienced by large Australian banks over the past 50 years, severe member withdrawals and switching by superannuation fund members, and an operational disruption at a material service provider.

The key findings included:

• Australia’s financial system is resilient to market and liquidity shocks, with all participating super funds and banks able to withstand the shock exercise;
• vulnerabilities do exist, particularly related to concentration, mismatched assumptions and common dependencies;
• superannuation funds play a systemic role in the stability of the Australian financial system;
• certain vulnerabilities are expected to increase as the superannuation sector continues to grow; and
• improved preparedness at an entity level will make the financial system stronger.

Click here for details.

Parliament – Regulations banning advertising of superannuation funds during onboarding registered

On 29 June 2026, the Corporations Amendment (Ban on Advertising Superannuation Funds During Onboarding) Regulations 2026 were registered on the Federal Register of Legislation.

As noted in our Super Alert of 27 March 2026, the Regulations ban the advertising of certain superannuation products to new employees as part of the onboarding process, with certain exceptions, and are intended to reduce the risk that employees are induced or influenced to choose a superannuation product that is not appropriate to their needs or results in the opening of unnecessary multiple superannuation accounts during the onboarding process.

According to the Explanatory Statement to the Regulations, the ban does not apply to a person when advertising a superannuation product if:

• ‘the superannuation product is the employee’s stapled fund’;
• ‘the superannuation product is the employer’s default fund’;
• ‘the statement or advertisement refers only to a MySuper product’ that meets certain conditions; or
• ‘the advertisement or statement occurs in the ordinary course of distributing content or enabling distributions, and the person did not know and had no reason to suspect that advertisement or statement could be a contravention of the prohibition.’

Click here for details.

ASIC – Regulator issues warning to platform trustees

On 29 June 2026, ASIC issued a warning for superannuation platform trustees to address the ‘stark and persistent failures [observed] to protect retirement savings, including gaps in the monitoring of harmful advice fee deductions, unusual fees and investment patterns, and high-risk superannuation switching activity’. The warning comes following the publication of Report 833 Safeguarding super: How well are platform trustee monitoring risks to retirement savings?

Report 833 details the findings from ASIC’s review of six platform trustees who manage around three quarters of total funds managed by platform trustees. ASIC’s review identified the following areas requiring immediate attention:

• persistent gaps were observed in advice fee controls;
• half of the trustees reviewed reported they had not conducted any checks of advice for at least one month during ASIC’s review period;
• there was an insufficient focus on understanding the business models of advice licensees; and
• ‘inadequate monitoring of key risk indicators, such as member churn, patterns in fees, holding limits and unusual fund flows’.

In its report, ASIC reiterated that it expects trustees to urgently improve their monitoring, or risk undermining confidence in the sector.

Click here and here for details

APRA – Superannuation data reporting FAQs updated

On 26 June 2026, APRA added seven new frequently asked questions (FAQs) for superannuation data reporting, designed to clarify reporting questions raised by RSE licensees. The new FAQs include:

• how RSE licensees should be reporting investment value across timeframes;
• how liquid assets that are not expected to be liquidated over the short term (3 to 30 days) should be reported;
• providing clarity on determining reportable exposures of listed and liquid unlisted assets for the calculation of materiality thresholds for reporting under SRF 553.0; and
• clarifying the relationship between SRS 553.0 and SRS 550.0.

Click here for details.

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