Compliance

As a software partner, you have likely followed the growth and development of SuperAPI, and observed our sustained and extensive efforts to demonstrate industry leadership in delivering compliance solutions for employers, whilst strictly adhering to and enforcing both the intent and the application of the law with relation to the Australian SIS Act.

To this end we are excited to announce that we have taken the decision to ensure our superannuation partners, software partners, our software partner's sales teams, and the general public have access to the same information that SuperAPI provides to our partners whilst we are forming our relationships, commercial agreements and establishing shared operating principles.

Here we publicly publish these guidelines on our website so that you, your teams, and your peers have clarity about what SuperAPI determines what is and is not acceptable by law in relation to automated compliance tools, employee onboarding generally, and requirements around conduct in the industry.

We encourage your learning and development teams to use these education guidelines that are intended specifically for software partners, their clients (employers) and for our superfund partners. These are provided for your convenience, and hope that you agree this will act as the gold standard and establish a code-of-conduct by which all industry participants can measure themselves.

Annexure 1: Section 68A SIS Act – superannuation choice and compliance guidelines

Section 1: Employer obligations – offering choice of fund

Avoiding the Choice Liability Penalty: Eligible employees must be provided with a standard superannuation choice form within 28 days of commencement.¹ The Commissioner must issue an employer a notice to pay an amount of superannuation guarantee charge if the charge remains unpaid 28 days after the charge became payable. The employer may become liable to an administrative penalty if the employer does not comply with the notice.

Supporting Portability and Consolidation: Offering choice ensures employees can keep retirement savings in their existing account, preventing multiple accounts that erode balances through repeated administration fees and duplicate insurance policies.

Compliance with Industrial Instruments: Employers must offer choice to satisfy federal award and enterprise agreement provisions. Modern awards specify certain funds and employers must offer choice to align with both national employment standards and the employee's statutory rights.

Section 2: Employer obligations – providing default fund information

Note

The ATO's "Stapled Super Fund" API is lawfully available for use during the employee onboarding process. The relevant law makes it clear that employers and their authorised software providers may query the stapling register as part of onboarding workflows to identify an employee's existing "stapled" fund.²

Default Fund: Employers must select a nominated default fund that acts as a fallback for employees who do not make an active choice and do not have an existing "stapled" account with the ATO.³

Required Disclosure Details: The standard choice form requires employers to disclose the default fund's legal name, ABN, USI and standard PDS. This ensures the employee has access to factual, compliant product details prior to any contributions being made.

Complying MySuper Product Verification: The employer's nominated default fund must be a complying fund registered by APRA that offers an authorised MySuper product.⁴ These products provide standard investment strategies and fee structures designed to protect unengaged members.

Section 3: Restrictions on financial product advice and recommendations

Applies to both employers and software partners.

No Qualitative Comparisons: Employers and software partners are prohibited from comparing superannuation products, discussing performance, fees, or insurance offerings of different funds, or sharing opinions on the relative merits of the default fund versus an employee's chosen fund. Such statements constitute unlicensed financial product advice under the Corporations Act 2001.⁵

No Active Encouragement or Nudging: Employers must not influence, mandate, or encourage an employee to select a specific fund or use the company's default option. The onboarding workflow must present choice, stapling and defaulting as neutral options.⁶

Prohibition on Hawking Financial Products: Employers must not make unsolicited offers or ask employees to apply for a specific superannuation product during real-time interactions, such as hiring meetings or onboarding check-ins, as this would likely breach anti-hawking provisions.⁷

Referral to Official Comparison Tools: If an employee has questions about fund performance during onboarding, they can be directed to independent resources such as the ATO's YourSuper comparison tool or a licensed financial adviser.⁸ If your Onboarding, HR or Payroll software contains links to independent resources such as the ATO YourSuper comparison tool, this can be a valid channel for your employees to access this information.

System Configuration Neutrality: Software partners must ensure that onboarding portals remain neutral and do not favour a particular fund. Portal configurations must not pre-select, highlight, or recommend any specific fund.⁹

References

1. Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992 (Cth) s 32N(2) (SGAA).
2. Section 990AB(4)(d) and (e) as inserted by Treasury Laws Amendment (Supporting Choice in Superannuation and Other Measures) Act 2026.
3. SGAA s 32C(2).
4. SGAA s 32C(2).
5. Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) s 766B (Corporations Act); see also ASIC Information Sheet 89 (INFO 89).
6. Section 68A of the SIS Act and INFO 89.
7. Corporations Act s 992A.
8. INFO 89.
9. SIS Act s 68A; see also INFO 89.

Guide for BDM, AM, and sales teams

Section 4: Compliance messaging for sales teams and account managers

For HR/payroll software partners' sales teams.

Choice Liability Exposure: Sales teams must explain that employers are legally required to offer eligible employees a choice of fund within 28 days of their start date.¹ Failure to offer choice can result in the ATO imposing a choice liability penalty.

Portability and Account Integrity: Offering choice helps employees manage their superannuation across jobs, avoiding duplicate fees and insurance erosion.

Automated Digital Compliance: Representatives should explain that compliant software digitises and automates the choice process, replacing paper forms with an integrated digital workflow that secures employee details automatically.

Default Fund if no choice made and no stapled fund found: If an employee fails to make a choice and a stapled fund cannot be identified using the ATO's Stapled Super Fund API, the employer must have a default fund to make contributions on and avoid penalties.

Automated Verification Routing: Sales teams should demonstrate how the platform queries the ATO Stapled Super Fund API to find stapled funds. If no stapled fund is returned, the system routes the contribution to the employer's default fund, avoiding manual lookups. The use of the ATO Stapled Super Fund API at onboarding is expressly permitted by the legislation.²

MySuper and Modern Award compliance: Account managers must explain that default funds must offer complying MySuper products and align with any applicable award requirements.³

Section 5: Section 68A – purpose, history and application to software partners

Section 68A of the SIS Act is designed to protect employee superannuation balances by prohibiting the supply or offer of goods or services where the purpose is to influence an employer's choice of default superannuation fund.

The prohibition extends to any "associate" of a trustee. Critically, section 68A(1)(c) also prohibits a trustee from "allowing" an associate to engage in the prohibited conduct, meaning that superannuation fund trustees bear direct liability for failing to prevent their associates from offering inducements to employers.

Section 68A(1)(c) provides that a trustee must not "allow" an associate to engage in the prohibited conduct. This imposes a positive supervisory obligation on trustees. A trustee that is aware, or ought reasonably to be aware, that its associate is offering inducements to employers, including free or discounted software, revenue-sharing arrangements or restrictive conditions on the use of competitor compliance tools and fails to take steps to prevent that conduct, may itself be in breach of section 68A. Employers who are approached with such offers should be aware that the trustee whose fund is being promoted may bear direct regulatory liability for the associate's conduct.⁴

The word "allow" in this context means "to permit", and a trustee may be taken to have "allowed" conduct where it has knowledge, whether actual or constructive, of the conduct and the power to prevent it, yet fails to exercise that power.

Because HR/payroll software partners integrate superannuation onboarding to streamline HR processes, they may be considered "associates" of partner superannuation funds under the law, where a sufficient commercial relationship exists.⁵ Consequently, offering discounts or premium software upgrades conditioned on using a specific partner fund as the employer's default option is strictly prohibited.⁶

References

1. SGAA s 32N(2).
2. Section 990AB(4)(d) and (e) as inserted by Treasury Laws Amendment (Supporting Choice in Superannuation and Other Measures) Act 2026.
3. SGAA s 32C(2).
4. Coffey Coffey LPM Pty Ltd v The Contaminated Sites Committee [No 2] [2013] WASC 98 at [95]; Adelaide City Corporation v Australasian Performing Rights Association Ltd [1928] HCA 10.
5. Corporations Act ss 10-17 (meaning of "associate").
6. SIS Act s 68A(3).

Compliance checklist for employers and software partners

Section 6: Compliant vs non-compliant platform offerings

The following table illustrates the distinction between offerings that contravene section 68A and those that are permitted:

Non-compliant platform offerings (likely to breach s 68A)	Compliant platform offerings (permitted practices)
Providing a free onboarding module to an employer on the condition that they forgo their own rights and obligations to nominate the fund of their own choice as their default.	Charging a standard, fund-agnostic subscription fee for onboarding modules, regardless of default fund choice.
Raising software licensing costs or removing payroll features if an employer decides to switch their default fund provider.	Maintaining consistent software pricing and features for all clients, regardless of default fund designations.
Pre-selecting a partner fund in the onboarding portal so employees are directed to it by default.	Allowing employers to configure their own default fund independently, with no pre-filled selections.
Offering free employee benefits software, revenue-sharing on non-superannuation products, or discounted HR modules on the condition that the employer uses the associate's superannuation advertising onboarding tools or agrees not to use another compliance platform.	Providing onboarding tools that are priced and delivered independently of any superannuation fund relationship.

Section 7: Prohibited activities

Prohibited activities relevant to employers

Fund or union coercion: An industry superannuation fund representative or a union official informing an employer or their staff that they must choose their specific fund to comply with industrial agreements, disregarding the employee's legal right to choose or stapling rules.¹

Direct commercial kickbacks: An employer agreeing to receive a direct cash payment, referral fee, or advertising fee from a superannuation trustee in exchange for selecting that fund as the organisation's designated default option.²

Free or discounted software access: An employer accepting free or discounted HR, payroll, or onboarding software licences from a technology vendor, being an associate of a superannuation trustee, on the condition that the employer forgo their own rights and obligations to nominate the fund of their own choice as their default. This includes arrangements where the associate supplies free employee benefits software, revenue-sharing on ancillary products such as automotive leases, or discounted HR modules, on the condition that the employer uses the associate's superannuation advertising tools during onboarding or agrees not to use a competing compliance platform.³

Indirect Retaliation and Inducements: A software provider or superannuation fund removing an employer's existing platform features, raising their licensing costs, or cancelling a commercial discount because the employer decided to change their default fund provider.⁴

Note

Although s 68A does not explicitly prohibit activities for employers, employers who engage in these activities may be seen as encouraging trustees to engage in the prohibited activity in breach of s 68A. See Section 8 for the relevant applicable penalty framework.

Exclusive Dealing Under Competition Law: In addition to Section 68A of the SIS Act, the supply of software or services on the condition that an employer acquires superannuation-related services from a specified third party or agrees not to use a competitor's compliance platform, may constitute "exclusive dealing" under section 47 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth).

Section 47(6) prohibits "third line forcing", which is the supply of goods or services on the condition that the recipient will acquire goods or services from another specified person. Section 47(2)(d) separately prohibits supply on condition that the recipient will not acquire services from a competitor. Both forms of exclusive dealing are unlawful where they have the purpose or likely effect of substantially lessening competition (s 47(10)).

Sub-section B: prohibited sales activities for software partners' representatives

Fund or Union Preference Nudging: Suggesting to a client that a specific industry fund or union has authorised the software partner to restrict employee choice to that fund during the digital onboarding process.⁵

Direct Commercial Rebates: Offering an employer direct financial incentives, software credits, or cash-back rebates for directing default employees to a specific partner fund.⁶

Bundled Platform Upgrades: Pitching a deal where premium HR modules, rostering systems, or employee benefit platforms are provided for free on the condition that the employer forgoes their rights in relation to the selection of the employer's default fund.

Commercial Retaliation and Feature Stripping: Informing an employer who wants to switch their default fund or switch / begin their use of a third-party software provider will result in the loss of their software discounts, base subscription price increases, revenue sharing arrangements relating to non-superannuation products or the removal of automation features.⁸

Misrepresenting Regulatory Requirements: Informing employers or prospects that the ATO Stapling API cannot lawfully be used during employee onboarding or that legislation prohibits its use at the onboarding stage, is factually incorrect. If a sales team member encounters such claims from a provider, they should document the interaction and escalate to their compliance and risk team immediately.

References

1. SIS Act s 68A; Fair Work Act s 348.
2. SIS Act s 68A(1)(a)-(b).
3. SIS Act s 68A(1).
4. SIS Act s 68A(1)(b); see also ASIC Information Sheet 241 (INFO 241).
5. SIS Act s 68A.
6. SIS Act s 68A(1).
7. SIS Act s 68A(1).
8. SIS Act s 68A(1).

Penalty framework guidelines

SuperAPI's commercial terms with software partners, partnership terms and MSA contracts with superannuation trustees (super funds), and the SuperAPI Terms and Conditions clearly mandate that all parties comply with the relevant law at all times, including but not limited to the SIS Act and the Australian Competition Law(s).

These contractually binding terms allow SuperAPI to limit or remove access to the SuperAPI platform in order to cause to cease conduct or activity that is, or is reasonably likely to be, in breach of any law or regulatory obligation or guideline. We provide the below penalty framework published by the Australian Government to give insight into the penalties that may apply where non-compliance is subject to penalty.

Section 8: Penalty framework

Section 68A and Part 21 of the SIS Act impose significant civil and criminal consequences for breaches:

Compliance metric	Individual liability details	Corporate / associate liability details
Maximum statutory fine	Up to 2,400 penalty units	Up to 2,400 penalty units
Monetary value (current penalty unit: $364 as at 1 July 2026)	Up to $873,600	Up to $873,600
Loss recovery actions (s 68A(5))	Direct civil liability for any loss or damage suffered by a victim	Joint and several liability for corporate entities involved in a breach
Licensing and Corporations Act penalties	Disqualification from serving as a director of any corporate entity	Potential civil penalties and direct licensing actions under Chapter 7

What to do next

Superannuation compliance is a complex area for employers and their software providers. We have endeavored to answer the most common questions, however we encourage you to seek information, guidance, and advice where necessary.

Below are some suggestions on where to continue your education, take action on identified risks, or report misconduct.

Section 9: Compliance resources and escalation steps

ASIC Inducement Guidelines: Refer to ASIC Information Sheet 241 (INFO 241) for detailed compliance examples regarding Section 68A.

Employer Communication Guidelines: Review ASIC Information Sheet 89 (INFO 89) to ensure onboarding workflows remain compliant.

ATO Default Fund Selection: Consult the ATO Select Your Default Super Fund Guide to ensure default selections satisfy complying MySuper standards.

Action Plan for Compliance Doubts: If an employer is unsure about a commercial offer, they should consult their legal adviser, request a Section 68A compliance attestation from the vendor, or contact ASIC to report suspected improper inducements.

Reporting Suspected Exclusive Dealing: If an employer receives a commercial offer from a software vendor or technology provider that conditions the supply of HR, payroll, or onboarding software on the employer using a specific superannuation fund's onboarding tools, or on the employer ceasing to use a competitor's compliance features, the employer should also consider reporting the conduct to the ACCC as a potential contravention of section 47 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth).

Internal Escalation: If a prospect asks for software discounts in exchange for using a partner superannuation fund, decline the request and escalate the matter to the organisation's compliance and risk team.

Getting help

Stuck with something and need help? Please contact us at support@superapi.com.au or by phone on 0405 472 748 (Sam). Have you setup a shared Slack or Teams channel with us? If not, please reach out so we can provide realtime support.