Brighter Super adds indexed options in further support for advisers

The $38 billion profit-to-member super fund Brighter Super has added two indexed shares options to its investment menu in response to demand from financial advisers seeking more flexibility when building portfolios for clients.

Indexed Australian and international shares options became available at the start of this month. Both charge 0.08 per cent a year, with no transaction costs and no performance fees, and are open to Brighter members with accumulation, pension or transition-to-retirement accounts.

The indexed international shares options tracks a weighted combination of the MSCI World Index in Australian dollars, with 20 per cent hedged and 80 per cent unhedged exposure, while an indexed Australian shares option is designed to track the S&P/ASX 300 Accumulation Index. 

Both sit alongside Brighter’s existing actively managed international and Australian shares options and complement an existing indexed balanced option. They were developed following consultation with external adviser groups, market research conducted with Investment Trends, investment modelling and competitor and fee analysis.

Brighter head of IFA partnerships and growth Craig Godfrey says that the fund has about 1500 advisers registered with it in some form, whom it surveys regularly, and “it’s the feedback from those surveys and the individual BDM interaction with those advisers that started documenting what advisers are looking for more of from us”. 

“When we built that list out about 12 months ago, when I joined, the top of the list was we need more building blocks, and index options were at the top of that building block list.”

Godfrey says some advisers who have worked with the fund over the past 12 months have already begun preparing statements of advice and records of advice to move clients into the new options, and several million dollars has already flowed in.

“We’ll probably have better detail in November around what’s landed.”

Another building block

Godfrey says Brighter restructured its property fund from 1 October to operate largely as an index option, cutting its fee to 18 basis points, providing another building block; and “we’ve had the diversified indexed balanced option for the last three or four years”.

Godfrey says some of the money moving to the standalone indexed options is expected to come from existing members switching out of other Brighter options, especially those who are more cost-aware or prefer a passive approach. 

But adviser feedback that other funds offered more indexed choice than Brighter did was also part of the catalyst for the research behind the new options, and there is also a member-retention benefit.

“There are certainly members that are more passively focused and fee-aware, so it’s just to offer that additional choice,” he says. 

“By having those additional choice options, it will cater for some of those members that potentially would have looked elsewhere.”

Brighter has more than 340,000 members and was formed through the merger of LGIAsuper and Energy Super and then the acquisition of Suncorp Super. 

It’s one of 14 funds to receive researcher Chant West’s Adviser-Ready Fund certification, a framework developed with the Financial Advice Association Australia to assess how easily advisers can work with a fund on a shared client, independent of investment performance.

The certification covers advisers’ access to a client’s fund holding information, their ability to transact on a client’s behalf, including digital signatures and consents, the ability to deduct adviser service fees, and dedicated adviser support through fund contact centres.

Godfrey says the certification reflects work his team has been doing for several years, under senior manager Nicky Leis, before he joined the fund.

“The work that Nicky and the team did initially in building it, particularly when you look at the Adviser-Ready criteria, was about having the portal, the log-on for advisers, the support around BDMs and business development consultants,” he says. 

“They did a lot of research to get it right, and the recognition has been really solid. Things like us accepting all the digital forms of signature and allowing advisers to upload through a portal.”

Godfrey says Brighter is not necessarily at the level of some retail platforms when it comes to adviser-facing technology.

“We do the best we can. From a member best financial interest perspective, we’ve got to look at our investment and justify it, but we’ve been able to tick off some of the really important [features].”

Work with financial advisers

Godfrey says the Adviser-Ready certification reflects not only product features, but also a deliberate decision to work with external financial advisers rather than compete with them.

Brighter largely exited the ongoing advice business just over a year ago, when it partnered with Financial Advice Matters, the salaried advice business owned by Centrepoint Alliance, to take on its ongoing advice clients.

“We don’t do an ongoing advice solution. We’ve modularised personal advice internally, and then my other team does general advice,” Godfrey says.

“I have a member growth team that does about 600 general advice discussions a month. We absolutely believe in financial advice in whatever form that takes. 

“We’re really good at education and seminars and those things, but we absolutely encourage our members to get advice, and that’s the partnership relationship with external financial advisers.”

Brighter is also one of only eight funds in 2026 to receive an Epic Retirement Tick from the Epic Retirement Institute, based on assessments carried out by Chant West.

It is developing an innovative retirement income stream product with life insurer TAL, one of the initiatives Godfrey says was considered as part of its Epic Retirement Tick accreditation.

He says Brighter is the first profit-to-member fund to build this kind of product, with the accumulation-phase version due for release in the middle of next year, and it is continuing to work with TAL on the annuity pension component.

The Epic Retirement Tick assessment also includes cyber security testing. 

“There’s obviously a serious interest from retirees around protecting their money, and by having that ticked off, it does indicate our serious focus on looking after members,.” he says.

“There’s obviously a serious interest from retirees around protecting their money, and by having that ticked off, it does indicate our serious focus on looking after members.”