Statistical Publication

COVID-19 Early Release Scheme - Issue 4

Superannuation
Published
25 May 2020
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This report includes applications received between 20 April - 17 May 2020.

COVID-19 Early Release Scheme - issue 4

An accessible version of this dashboard is available here.

Additional Commentary

APRA has received early release data submissions for the period ended 17 May 2020 from 177 funds. Funds have submitted on a best endeavours basis.

Over the period from the inception of the scheme on 20 April to 17 May, payments that have been made to eligible members have taken an average of 3.3 business days to pay after receipt of the application from the Australian Tax Office (ATO) and 94 per cent have been made within five business days.

Over the week to 17 May, superannuation funds made payments to 220,000 members, bringing the total number of payments to 1.41 million since inception. The total value of payments during the week was $1.7 billion, with $10.6 billion paid since inception. The average payment made over the period since inception is $7,510.

Fund-level data

The fund-level data shows that 148 of the 177 funds that submitted data made early release payments in the period since inception to 17 May 2020. (Note that the fund-level data includes 40 funds for which the data has been published as a group in order to protect the privacy of information for individual members.) 

Among all funds that submitted data, 137 (77 per cent) completed more than 90 per cent of payments within the five business days guideline indicated by APRA. Further, with limited exceptions (1.3 per cent), payments to members have been completed within ten business days from receipt of applications from the ATO.

The ten funds with the highest number of applications received from the ATO have made 947,500 payments worth a total of $7.07 billion. The average payment from these funds was $7,617, with over 93 per cent of payments made within five days. 

Details of the industry-level data is provided below:

•    This document provides details on payments and processing timeframes for funds that have made payments to members in the period ending 17 May 2020.

Early Release Scheme entity level reporting - 17 May 2020 period XLSX 5.45 MB ‧ 25 May 2020

•    This document provides a summary of the data that has been reported to APRA by funds for that period.

Early Release Scheme entity level data - 17 May 2020 period XLSX 85.32 KB ‧ 25 May 2020

Do you have questions about your personal application?

APRA has set out a five day guidance period for payments after receipt of applications from the ATO by funds, but also acknowledges that these timeframes may extend slightly where a Registered Superannuation Entity (RSE) licensee experiences a high volume of applications at any particular time. Delays can also occur in exceptional circumstances – such as where the RSE licensee’s automated checking has identified that additional fraud or other verification steps are required, or where the payment is being made from interests held in defined benefit funds.

If you do not believe you have received the funds you have applied for within a reasonable timeframe it is recommended that you contact your trustee directly to determine if there is a specific reason for the delay. 

Footnotes