It’s unlikely that you’ve heard of Demetria Guynes, Maurice Micklewhite, Elizabeth Fey, Ramón Estévez or Caryn Johnson and there is a reason for that.
Demi Moore, Michael Caine, Tina Fey, Martin Sheen and Whoopi Goldberg have long since shed their birth names, leaving us to ponder if they would have enjoyed the same success under their original monikers.
Which brings us to self-managed superannuation funds, ubiquitously abbreviated to SMSFs across the industry. The point is that the letters S, M, S and F simply don’t roll off the tongue sweetly in even the most articulate of mouths.
And in some cases the normal hiss of the letter S can turn into a distracting whistle as the sibilant result of a speech impediment or unfortunate dental arrangement.
But, of course, SMSFs are the fastest growing sector of the superannuation industry and now account for approximately a third of total superannuation assets in Australia. As at June 30, 2012 there were over 470,000 SMSFs with approximately 913,550 members.
Triple that number to include people considering an SMSF and you have a significant proportion of the population tripping over their consonants in reference to this lucrative and highly competitive section of the marketplace.
AMP SMSF managing director, Paul Sainsbury, recently summed up the frustrations of many when he stumbled over the troublesome letters at a press briefing before explaining to journalists: “I can’t even say SMS anymore.”
So does the sexiest sector in financial services need a linguistic makeover?
Smurf-related misconduct
According to media reports, Jeremy Cooper, Australia’s foremost authority on superannuation, calls SMSFs “Smurfs” after the small blue fictional creatures that live in mushroom houses in a forest.
And, while Cooper risks being nicknamed Pappa Smurf as a result, the idea has merit. After all the younger generation so critical to the future of self-directed retirement services are more likely to associate blue people in forests with Avatar, or as one cynic dubbed the James Cameron blockbuster, Dances with Smurfs.
Certainly ASIC commissioner, Peter Kell, was happy to run with the term at a recent CPA Australia SMSF conference in Sydney, leading to some wonderfully evocative imagery.
Addressing the broader regulation of the SMSF sector, Kell came up with the following near the end of his address.
“ASIC has released information to the public concerning a number of the larger enforcement matters that involve significant Smurf-related misconduct,” he said, adding that Smurfs were becoming more mainstream and would therefore feature more often in the regulator’s work.
Of course the word “Smurf” is the original Dutch translation of the French “Les Schtroumpf”, a word invented when creator Peyo couldn’t remember the word salt.
Now that really rolls off the tongue.