Thinking that Vanguard AU might have launched its superannuation (tax-advantaged retirement) fund at the start of the new fiscal year, I searched. Vanguard hasn't launched, but a 3 June 2020 article in the Australian Financial Review1 came up. In the article Vanguard denies their super offering is delayed; they started in November 2019. They've given up $100 billion in investment mandates from other super funds and have hired 100 people to roll out their super. The head of Vanguard Australia super, Michael Lovett, said
That's still a ways away, and surprising to me Lovett also said,it is confident of launching by the end of the calendar year.
That seems like a long time for a big global investment manager to not be able to satisfy the Australian authorities to grant them a license to operate a superannuation fund.Vanguard Australia was yet to be granted a registerable superannuation entity (RSE) licence from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.
On the prospective cost of Vanguard's super, Lovett said that we
That seems to be standard Vanguard: we charge what it costs to run the fund; expense ratios will lower as assets grow. And in what must qualify as an unsurprising statement---at least to Bogleheads---he said the initial investment offerings would be indexed.should not assume the product would be the nation’s cheapest at launch.
“We are starting from scratch,” he said. “We don’t have the scale to lower the cost all the way to where it probably ends up in the long term.
And in something that I'm not sure Vanguard's ever done before, Lovett says they're open to buying existing super funds:
As there are more than a few badly managed and costly super funds that should be put out of their investors' misery, maybe Vanguard taking them over would be a good thing. I suspect there would be a lot of competition from big industry funds to take over the laggards.In its bid to grow quickly, Mr Lovett said Vanguard was open to mergers and acquisitions of other funds
Ah well, we still wait to see what Vanguard Australia will do about launching a superannuation fund.
1I think the AFR is paywalled, but I find if you refresh the page and hit esc quickly enough that prevents the overlay from blanking out the article.