COVID-19 Early Release Scheme - Issue 2
This report includes applications received between 20 April - 3 May 2020.
*Text version - Dashboard on COVID-19 Superannuation Early Release Scheme.
Additional commentary
APRA has received early release data submissions for the period ended 3 May 2020 from 177 funds; these have been submitted on a best endeavours basis.
Over the two week period from 20 April to 3 May, on average payments were made to eligible members 3.1 days after receiving the application from the Australian Tax Office (ATO). For that period, 96 per cent of payments were made within five business days of receiving applications from the ATO. Superannuation funds had issued early release payments to 830,024 members, worth a total of $6.3 billion and with an average payment of $7,629.
Fund-level data
The fund-level data shows that 142 funds of the 177 funds that submitted data made early release payments in the period to 3 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.) Of all of the funds that have submitted, 117 (82 per cent) made more than 90 per cent of payments within the five business days guideline indicated by APRA. That includes 57 funds that have made all payments within five business days, 24 that paid 99 per cent within that timeframe, and another 18 funds that paid 98 per cent within five business days. Further, with very few exceptions, all payments to members have been made within ten business days from receipt of applications from the ATO.
In addition to industry-level data, APRA has published the first fund-level statistics from its Early Release Initiative data collection, including the number and value of the payments processed by each fund and the proportion of payments processed within five and ten business days. The ten funds with the highest number of applications received from the ATO have made 552,700 payments worth a total of $4.2 billion, with an average payment of $7,560 with 97.6 per cent of payments being made within five days.
etails of the industry-level data is provided below:
• The document below provides details on payments and processing timeframes for funds that have made payments to members in the period ending 3 May 2020:
• The document below provides a summary of the data that has been reported to APRA by funds for that period.
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.