The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, which assesses the performance of super funds, has been calling for smaller funds to consider merging with bigger ones to improve efficiency for some time.

“We know that size and scale is an important feature of efficiency, performance, and lower fees,” the chair of the super fund watchdog Margaret Cole told the House of Representatives standing committee on economics in June.

The authority released its report card for superannuation products last month, which revealed about 64,000 accounts holding $4.2 billion in assets had underperformed against set benchmarks for fees.

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