Millennials are missing out on as much as an extra $50,000 in their retirement savings, as out-of-touch super funds don’t do enough to engage with young customers, the corporate regulator says.

While young people were keen on improving their financial outlook, they generally lacked support from the superannuation industry to help them make smart fiscal choices, said Simone Constant, commissioner at the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

“They are missing out on real opportunities to make some simple decisions now that can compound over the coming decades and really have significance in financial terms at that point of retirement,” Constant said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

Research from ASIC’s education platform Moneysmart showed nearly half of respondents born between 1981 and 1996 admitted to not knowing much, if anything, about how to make the most of their superannuation.

There is about $2.7 trillion held in superannuation in Australia, excluding self-managed super funds, with Millennials the first generation to benefit from compulsory super contributions made from the day they started working.

But the industry’s stuffy, future-focused language was missing the mark with a generation busy making financial decisions every day, she said.

“When they hear ‘nest egg’, ‘retirement planning’, ‘pensions’ – those terms from their funds just don’t resonate,” she said.

The commissioner said digital resources such as online tools, calculators and goal-setting information were also not up to scratch for millennials accustomed to having knowledge at their fingertips, such as minute-by-minute data in banking apps.

Sydney electrician Tom Davidson said though his super app lets him check his balance, he would like to see providers offer more comprehensive education to customers.