Australian pension funds impress in global rankings

Leading global advisory firm Willis Towers Watson has reported that Australia’s pension system is the most successful of all developing countries.

With its competitive institutional model and defined contributions (a workplace retirement plan in which an employee contributes money, and the employer makes a matching contribution), Australia’s pension system has a healthy 11.3% per annum growth rate.

The Great Aussie Dream of having private assets, including real estate and share portfolios, has fuelled pension assets to grow from 7 to 26% over the last two decades.

When assessing global pension assets, Willis Towers Watson noted Australia’s resilience in this asset area. Despite giving out AUD $36 billion in early access to superannuation schemes during the Covid19 pandemic, Australia’s pension assets grew from 151% of GDP in 2019 to 175% in 2020.

Despite our small population Australia ranks 5th in the top 7 countries holding the largest amount of pension assets:

1. USA with $32.6 billion

2. Japan $3.6 billion

3. UK $3.56 billion

4. Canada $3.1 billion

5. Australia $2.3 billion

6. Netherlands $1.9 billion

7. Switzerland $1.2 billion