New directors join AMP super boards

Cathy Doyle and Tony Brain have joined the boards of AMP Superannuation Limited and N.M. Superannuation Proprietary Limited as independent non-executive directors.

Ms Doyle carries more than 25 years of experience in the finance, superannuation and consumer services sectors, with senior roles at McDonald’s Australia, BNP Paribas, CBA, Qantas, NRMA and Perpetual.

She also served as a non-executive director at publicly listed and not-for-profit organisations, where she focused on people and remuneration activities as well as risk and audit committees.

Mr Brain, a chartered accountant, spent 28 years with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, with 12 years of that as a partner responsible for assurance and advisory services to superannuation clients.

He was also head of risk management at AustralianSuper for nearly three years and is currently a non-executive director on a number of boards.

In welcoming the new directors, AMP Superannuation Limited chairman Rick Allert AO said: “Both have considerable experience in the superannuation industry and will help ensure AMP’s superannuation funds are governed in the best interests of our members.”

The appointments come after royal commissioner Kenneth Hayne heard that AMP Superannuation had a lengthy process where it was possible for its board not to be informed of a consistently underperforming fund for up to five years, which the firm denied.

In a bid to boost its competitiveness in the retail superannuation industry, AMP had also announced fee reductions for MySuper’s 700,000-strong customer base as well as for future customers in its annual financial results for FY2018.

“Fundamentally, we believe AMP is well positioned to take advantage of the growth in superannuation in Australia and we’re ready to compete for it,” former acting CEO Mike Wilkins said.

The wealth giant is also set to remove its self-managed super fund loan product, SuperEdge, from sale on 20 October 2018. Similar moves were made by other lenders such as Westpac and Commonwealth Bank.

The announcement followed AMP revealing in September that it would no longer be offering interest-only terms on new SuperEdge Loans.

Existing AMP SuperEdge Loans will be prevented from switching to interest-only repayments, refinancing or extending their loan term after 10 November 2018.

[Related: AMP to remove SMSF loan product from sale]