Check If Your Super Fund Is Underperforming (APRA 2025 Test)
A $300 million outflow is a sign that even Australia’s biggest super fund can lose members when performance and service disappoint, and APRA data show AustralianSuper recorded –$0.3 billion in competitive flows in FY2025.
The number that matters
The central number is 7: APRA says seven super fund products failed the 2025 performance test, and all of them were trustee-directed products rather than MySuper products.
How it quietly costs you
The first quiet money drain is staying in an underperforming investment option after APRA has already shown it lags its benchmark. APRA’s super performance test compares products against a benchmark over 8 years, and the test is designed to identify options that are persistently behind; in 2025, 7 products failed, which means members in those options risk lower long-run balances than peers in better-performing funds.
The practical impact is large: Finder notes that sticking with a poor-performing fund can leave you with hundreds of thousands of dollars less at retirement, and APRA’s test exists precisely because these gaps compound over decades.
Old vs better: APRA reported 0 MySuper failures in 2025, while 7 trustee-directed products failed, so the “better” benchmark is simply being in a product that passes APRA’s test rather than one that fails it.
The second, compounding trap
The second layer is fees inside choice or platform-style products, where higher costs compound even when investment performance looks acceptable in a single year. APRA’s 2025 test still found failures concentrated in trustee-directed products, and industry commentary tied persistent underperformance to platform-based products in particular, where members can pay more for lower results.
The long-run cost is not a one-off dollar leak but a compounding drag: even a small annual gap in net returns can materially reduce retirement savings over a working life, which is why APRA and consumer guides emphasise comparing net performance over several years rather than last year’s return alone.
What this looks like in practice
Mia, 39, marketing manager in Sydney, earns $118,000, has $132,000 in super, is in a choice super fund, and has 26 years until retirement.
- She discovers her fund is in a product class where APRA still found 7 failures in 2025, while all 52 MySuper products passed; that means her choice option may be materially riskier than the default products most Australians use.
- She discovers that looking only at one-year returns is misleading, because AustralianSuper’s Balanced option returned 8.26% over 12 months to 31 March 2026, but APRA’s test judges performance over an 8-year window; a strong year does not erase a weak long-term record.
- She discovers the cost of doing nothing can be enormous, because Finder says a poor super fund can leave a member with hundreds of thousands of dollars less at retirement, which is a much bigger loss than the small effort needed to compare funds.
The full cost of doing nothing
For Mia, the combined lifetime cost of being in an underperforming, higher-cost option can plausibly reach hundreds of thousands of dollars at retirement, based on APRA’s long-horizon performance framework and Finder’s estimate of the retirement gap from staying in a poor fund.
This estimate is a modelling-style inference rather than a single published dollar figure, and it assumes a multi-decade working life, continued contributions, and persistent underperformance or fee drag relative to a passing benchmark product.
What to do about it
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Check your fund’s APRA performance-test status using the APRA superannuation product performance page and find whether your exact product passed or failed the latest test.
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Step 1: Open the APRA performance-test results for the latest year.
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Step 2: Search for your product name, option name, or trustee.
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Step 3: Compare your product against the APRA benchmark status and note whether it passed.
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Good looks like: your product passes the latest APRA test and is not on the failed-products list.
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Compare your super using the YourSuper comparison tool on the Australian Taxation Office website and look up fees and long-term returns for your product.
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Step 1: Log in or search for the official YourSuper comparison tool.
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Step 2: Enter your product details and the balance you actually hold.
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Step 3: Compare the annual fees and net returns against the available benchmarks.
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Good looks like: lower fees and a return profile that is not materially below the median or benchmark product.
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Review your latest statement and fund factsheet through your super fund’s member portal and compare the investment option you are in with the default balanced or lifecycle option offered by your fund.
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Step 1: Find your investment option name and current balance.
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Step 2: Check the fund’s net performance over 3, 5, and 8 years.
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Step 3: Compare it with APRA’s pass/fail result and the fund’s standard option.
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Good looks like: your option has competitive multi-year net returns, not just a strong last-year number.
A myth worth clearing up
Myth: If my fund had a good year, it is probably fine. Fact: APRA’s test is based on an 8-year benchmark, because a single good year does not prove a fund is competitive over time; in 2025, 7 products still failed despite some products posting strong recent returns.
Sources
Researched 2026-06-23.
Corrections & disclosure: an AI-assisted, human-reviewed guide. Every figure is dated and sourced above. Spot something out of date or wrong? Tell us and we’ll correct it — corrections are noted here and in the video description.
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