Superannuation Data Transformation Strategic Forum - 14 February 2023

APRA held the second Superannuation Data Transformation (SDT) Strategic Forum (SSF) on Tuesday 14 February 2023. The purpose of this forum is to contribute to the understanding and resolution of strategic issues arising throughout the implementation of SDT project. Hosted by Alison Bliss, the SSF was attended by 25 industry stakeholders (see Appendix A for the full list of attendees).

14 February SSF: Key discussion points

Since the last forum, APRA released the terms of reference for the strategic forum and notes from the previous meeting on the APRA website.

As foreshadowed in the last meeting, APRA released a letter to industry on the updated Prudential Standard SPS 310 Audit Related Matters (SPS 310), along with the final version of SPS 310. APRA reduced the scope of changes to SPS 310 to address industry feedback on implementation challenges as RSE licensees continue to develop new reporting systems and processes to support more granular reporting. Reporting Standard SRS332.0 Expenses is not in scope for audit for the year ending June 2023.

APRA provided an update on recent activities under the SDT project:

• APRA intends to release a response paper following consultation on Minor Amendments to Phase 1 reporting standards on the 28 February 2023. The proposed changes in the Minor Amendments to Phase 1 reporting standards will enable the removal of best endeavours reporting for expenses and asset allocation, in addition to minor changes made to the reporting in response to industry feedback.
  
   
• APRA confirmed that the response paper includes considerations of the recent changes to the SIS regulations regarding the Annual Member Meeting notice disclosure requirements, as well as industry feedback on implementation timeframes for the amended reporting standards.
  
   
• In response to industry feedback and to ensure industry has capacity to engage effectively with consultations, APRA intends to update the timeframes for the consultations on reporting under Phase 2 of SDT. APRA will reduce consultations to two per financial year while still allowing for consultation during the peak year-end reporting period. APRA will release the updated Phase 2 timeline with the Minor Amendments response letter.
  
   
• APRA also intends to publish the timeline with the key SDT milestones to the APRA website on 28 February to aid industry planning.
  
   
• APRA intends to publish the Quarterly Product Level Publications in the coming months and will continue to release publications on a staged basis.
  
   
• APRA continues to assess the quality of the reporting under the new reporting standards compared to Direct to APRA (D2A) reporting standards and will continue to communicate to industry on the progress of decommissioning D2A.

APRA also provided an update on APRA Connect:

• As noted in the November forum, APRA held an APRA Connect user group to facilitate dialogue on industry challenges and explore solutions in December 2022.  
  
   
• APRA thanked industry for reporting any issues encountered when submitting reporting via APRA Connect and encouraged industry to continue to update APRA of any issues by sending it through to datanalytics@apra.gov.au.
  
   
• APRA has put in place additional monitoring to understand the root causes of issues that are causing the system processing to be slow at times.
  
   
• APRA is working with the vendor to address the issues, which includes arranging for the vendor to be on site to monitor issues.
  
   
• APRA also removed auto generated overdue notices on APRA Connect. APRA has implemented a manual process to review submission and issue overdue notices if necessary.
  
   
• APRA intends to set up a superannuation technical reference group to improve ongoing engagement on  APRA Connect and will request nominations.

SSF members provided feedback on the performance of APRA Connect and suggested APRA publish an external dashboard that provides live updates on the performance status of APRA Connect. SSF further questioned whether APRA was considering or had plans to publish metrics on how APRA Connect is performing against target. APRA advised it will take the feedback into consideration and discuss internally and provide an update at the next SSF.

The next SSF will be held on 16 May 2023.

Appendix A – SDT Strategic Stakeholder Forum attendees