Australia's superannuation system savings reached the A$2 trillion ($1.6 trillion) mark during the first quarter, said Alex Dunnin, head of research for The Rainmaker Group, a research, publishing and consulting firm focused on Australia's financial services industry.
That milestone comes roughly seven years after the country's superannuation industry achieved A$1 trillion in retirement savings, Mr. Dunnin said in a telephone interview.
Based on Rainmaker's current assumptions, the A$3 trillion mark should be reached by 2020, Mr. Dunnin said.
That continued healthy growth suggests that saving enough for retirement is not the problem in Australia, Mr. Dunnin said. Instead, the development of an institutional-quality investment management industry, capable of managing retirement savings that will increasingly dwarf investment opportunities at home, is the challenge now for local managers, he said.
At present, the pool of superannuation funds is 30% bigger than Australia's economy, Mr. Dunnin said. But with Rainmaker predicting A$9 trillion in superannuation savings within 20 years, the industry will be tasked with investing a sum three to four times the size of the economy, he said.
