The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has revealed that members of superannuation funds for Commonwealth public servants and military personnel have withdrawn $169 million from their balances under the COVID-19 Early Release Scheme.
The Authority’s figures show nearly 20,000 applications were approved for early access to superannuation held by funds for Commonwealth employees.
According to Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation, it was likely that most of the members who accessed their super early were no longer employees of the Australian Public Service or Australian Defence Force.
APRA said high volumes of applications were expected for the start of the second tranche of the COVID-19 Early Release Scheme this month.
“This may impact the processing time for payments being made by funds,” the Authority said.
“Payments made to eligible members have taken an average of 3.3 business days after receipt of the application from the Australian Tax Office (ATO) and 95 per cent have been made within five business days,” it said.
“Over the week to 28 June, superannuation funds made payments to 129,000 members, bringing the total number of payments to approximately 2.4 million since inception.”
APRA said the average payment made between 20 April and 28 June under the Early Release Scheme was $7,503.
Further information, including APRA’s data on the Scheme can be accessed at this PS News link.
