Closing a Super or Pension account

There are two ways to close a Wrap Super or Pension account:

• Full withdrawal and closure
• Full rollover and closure.

To close a Super or Pension account, you’ll need to complete the following steps to avoid delays:

• Sell or transfer out any non-cash assets – Any investments in your client’s account will need to be sold (and sale proceeds cleared) before an account closure request can be submitted. When selling the holdings, you should also take into consideration any purchases that may not have finalised as a result of an automated plan, as well as term deposit maturities and outstanding corporate actions.
• Cease automated plans – Confirm all automated plans including automatic cash management, automatic rebalancing, dollar cost averaging and/or direct debits have been cancelled.
• Check for outstanding dividends and distributions – Check if all expected distributions and dividends have been received into the cash account, as this will delay a full closure of the account.
• Review the insurance with the client – Have the client provide an election to cancel the insurance. If the client is taking out a new policy, it’s important this is established before cancelling the policy with Macquarie.
• Claim outstanding tax deductions – Have the client claim deductions on personal contributions or vary any previous deductions by providing the Deduction Notice, as they won’t be able to complete this after the account is closed. 
• Ensure your client has reached preservation age or met a condition of release – Please refer to the Macquarie Big Black Book for further information.

The process to close an account depends on whether the closure is being requested via:

• Withdrawal/Rollover form
• Superstream request (initiated by the receiving super fund).
  

To ensure we can comply with superannuation obligations, if we receive an instruction to close an account and the account is not ready to be closed, we may treat this as an instruction to also:

• sell investments to cash
• lapse any corporation actions
• turn off any automatic investment management plans, and
• cease any further premium payments for any insurance held, which may result in insurance being cancelled. 

Closing a Super or Pension account generally takes around six days (where clients hold a combination of cash and assets). However, factors like selling or transferring assets can extend the closure timeframe.

Processing times begin only when all necessary requirements for a request have been received. To avoid delays, please ensure all forms are completed, and supporting documents uploaded, before submitting the request.

For redemption times for non-daily priced funds (NDPFs) please refer to our NDPF schedule.

You can check the status of a closure request in Request Centre.

To rollover to an SMSF you need to provide the following details related to the SMSF:

• An electronic service address (ESA) providing SMSF rollover services
• An Australian business number (ABN)
• Up to date details, including your SMSF’s unique bank account for superannuation payments
• For EFT payments please attach a bank statement or transaction history that is less than six months old for validation purposes (clearly including the BSB and account number, with the account name)
• Confirm the above SMSF details with the ATO are up to date.

For more information see Transferring from Super to IDPS (SMSF) as a rollover.

The sell down process for your client’s assets depends on what’s happening after we close the account:

• Rollover to an SMSF
• Full withdrawal.

If the account has a term deposit and is being closed via a rollover, depending on the maturity date, we may follow the above process to selldown all assets to cash excluding the term deposit and process a maximum partial withdrawal to meet regulatory requirements.

From there, you have the choice to either break the term deposit early or to wait until it matures and transfer the funds then.

Non-daily priced funds (NDPFs) process orders on their own schedule. A NDPF may take over 30 days to settle. Please check the NDPF schedule for redemption timeframes.

You can sell managed funds (including non-daily priced) via Adviser Online. See Trading using Adviser Online.

Separately Managed Accounts (SMAs) can be sold via Adviser Online. See Trading using Adviser Online.

Please note:

• The underlying assets within an SMA depend on which SMA your client is invested in
• Where there are multiple asset types with varying redemption timeframes, selling down an SMA can be an extended process as it is dependent on each of the underlying assets being sold and settling to cash before the SMA can be closed
• Full payment won’t be processed until the final asset is sold.

Where your client holds illiquid (delisted/suspended/frozen) investments, we won’t be able to action the full closure of your client’s account until the illiquid investments are either redeemed or transferred.

Some illiquid assets can be transferred while others are non-transferable.

It’s your responsibility to monitor any changes to the liquidity of the asset.

• If the asset becomes liquid, you’ll need to initiate a sell request.
• If the asset becomes transferable, you’ll need to provide supporting documentation to process the transfer.

The client’s exit statement will be usually available 3 business days after the account has been closed.

1. Log in to Adviser Online
2. From the global search bar, select Accounts from the drop-down
3. Search for the super or pension account name or number
4. Click on the account name from the drop-down list
5. Click Statements and correspondence
6. Click the Client correspondence tab
7. Select the Download icon to download the document in PDF format.

Important information:

• Your clients will continue to receive their correspondence via the post. The digital versions will only be available in Adviser Online. 
• The Macquarie Contact Centre will no longer email advisers or their support staff copies of the correspondence. You can access these through Adviser Online.