Colonial First State Interest Rates Class Action

When you give your hard-earned money to a superannuation fund, you have the right to assume they will do the best possible job of managing those savings for your retirement.

In 2018, the royal commission into banking revealed unacceptable behaviour from big bank-owned super funds including boosting their revenues by ripping customers off with uncompetitive interest rates on their cash investments.

We have commenced the first in a wave of class actions to help get victims of 'super cash rip-offs' their money back. Our class action against the Commonwealth Bank and its Colonial First State superannuation fund alleges that the fund breached the trust of its members by investing their retirement savings with its parent bank - despite the fact they didn't offer the best interest rates.

What you need to know about the Colonial First State class action

The first in our wave of class actions is for Colonial First State members who opted for a 'cash' or 'term deposit' investment option and had their savings automatically invested with the Commonwealth Bank.

Those eligible include current and former members of:

• FirstChoice Personal Super
• FirstChoice Pension
• FirstChoice Wholesale Personal Super
• FirstChoice Wholesale Pension
• FirstChoice Employer Super

The only stipulation is that you selected the FirstRate Saver, FirstRate Saver Select or FirstRate Term Deposit investment option.

This class action will also cover current and former members of Commonwealth Essential Super who fall into the Cash Deposit, Balanced or Lifestage investment options.

On 2 June 2019, the class action was expanded to include current and former members of the Colonial First State FirstWrap superannuation product.

Other class actions

We plan to launch a wave of class actions against big bank-owned super funds that we allege have rorted the system to boost their own profits instead of looking after members. We recognise superannuation can be complicated, but that's no reason for bank-owned funds to engage in dodgy practices when they should be maintaining your funds in your best interests.

We're starting with holding Colonial First State and the Commonwealth Bank to account, but we won't stop there. If you think you've been ripped off, make sure you check out our national Get Your Super Back campaign for more cases and regular updates.