On 14 October 2025, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) published Report 818 From superficial to super engaged: Better practices for trustee retirement communications (REP 818).

Background

REP 818 follows a review which examined how various trustees have been progressing with their implementation of the retirement income covenant, with a focus on how the trustees are communicating to their members about retirement in the lead up to and through retirement. REP 818 provides detailed observations of good and poor practices from 12 participants from 1 July 2022 to 11 December 2024.

Key findings from the review

ASIC is concerned that many Australians may not have the information they need to make confident and informed decisions about retirement after the review identified a lack of urgency in improving retirement communications among trustees. Also, trustees were failing to adequately consider the needs of First Nations, vulnerable, and culturally and linguistically diverse members in their retirement communications. Those trustees with robust governance, strong data and research capabilities and effective benchmarking were delivering better retirement communications.

Call to action

REP 818 sets out calls to action for trustees. For retirement communications trustees should consider:

  • Routinely reviewing retirement communications to ensure they focus on informing members about retirement, instead of prioritising product promotion and member retention.
  • Developing retirement communications that are better tailored to member needs, using meaningful member cohorts and nudges.
  • Routinely evaluating retirement communications, including the formats they utilise, using success metrics and feedback loops.

For supporting First Nations, vulnerable, and culturally and linguistically diverse members trustees should consider:

  • The specific challenges faced by First Nations members when developing and delivering retirement communications.
  • Improving processes for identifying and supporting them.
  • Measures that ensure retirement communications are accessible to culturally and linguistically diverse members and members with a disability or impairment.

For governance arrangements and implementation trustees should consider:

  • Improving governance arrangements for their retirement income strategy reviews to better support the development and delivery of retirement communications.
  • Ensuring governance structures are adequately resourced to execute their retirement income strategy and support their retirement communications, with appropriate oversight by executive and management-level staff.
  • Strengthening oversight of external service providers to ensure retirement communications meet quality, compliance and strategic expectations.
  • Expanding data and research capabilities to enable more informed decision making and improve retirement communications.

In addition, for nudge communications REP 818 states that trustees must ensure their retirement communications comply with relevant legislation and regulations, including the Spam Act 2003, which imposes requirements on the sending of commercial electronic messages. At the same time, trustees should prioritise developing and delivering effective, relevant and clear retirement communications. ASIC considers that the upcoming Tranche 3 of the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes reforms could provide an opportunity for trustees to expand the use and content of their nudges.

Next steps

ASIC is urging trustees to carefully consider the calls to action and better practice case studies outlined in REP 818 to identify and address blind spots in their retirement communications.