Organisation

Centre for International Finance and Regulation

Owning Institution:

University of New South Wales

Macquarie University

University of Technology Sydney

Government of Australia

Government of New South Wales

University of Sydney

University of Melbourne

Australian National University

The Centre for International Finance and Regulation (CIFR) was a Centre of Excellence operating from 2011 to 2016 to address fundamental issues affecting the Australian financial industry. CIFR’s mission was to promote financial sector vibrancy, resilience and integrity, supporting Australia as a regional financial centre through leading research and education on systemic risk, market and regulatory performance and financial market developments. CIFR funded 71 research projects, involving well over 100 researchers from domestic and international universities.

For Australia’s financial industry, CIFR provided a strategic link between academia, policy-makers, regulators and other industry participants. Now closed, the Centre's output of 148 papers are all available at this publisher page.

Working paper

Experiences of current and former members of self-managed superannuation funds

30 Sep 2016

Centre for International Finance and Regulation

The number of self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) has grown at more than 5% p.a. over the past five years. The net growth rate consists of 7% new SMSFs and 2% closures. More than 570,000 SMSFs now serve over one million members but little is known about the experiences of members. We survey 854 current and...

Working paper

Evaluating fund capacity: issues and methods

30 Sep 2016

Geoffrey J. Warren,

Michael O'Neill

Centre for International Finance and Regulation

This report examines the evaluation of capacity in an investment management context, outlining the key issues and various methods of analysis. We address the following question: “how large can a fund get before it is unable to create additional value for its investors?” In doing so, we frame the discussion under the assumption that an...

Working paper

Who starts a self-managed superannuation fund and why?

30 Sep 2016

Centre for International Finance and Regulation

Self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) – small retirement savings funds with four or fewer members – now manage almost one third of retirement savings in Australia, and serve over one million members. The number of SMSFs has increased to more than half a million in two decades. Yet little is known about the reasons people start...

Working paper

Are Australian superannuation fees too high?

14 Sep 2016

Centre for International Finance and Regulation

This report focuses on a sample of Australian superannuation funds to gain a better understanding of the factors that influences the fees that they charge. We examine how fund size, asset allocation, risk category and fund type influence investment, administration and total fees. We find that industry funds charge an investment fee that is over...

Working paper

Global equity fund performance evaluation with equity and currency style factors

3 Sep 2016

Centre for International Finance and Regulation

We propose a method for global equity fund performance evaluation that extends existing research by addressing both equity and currency factor exposures. Returns in excess of the risk-free rate are decomposed into contributions arising from the market, exposure to six equity and three currency ‘style factors’, and alpha. The method supports an understanding of how...