The Unique Superannuation Identifier (USI) for our open accumulation funds are listed below:

• PSSap 65127917725001
• ADF Super 90302247344001
• CSCri 65127917725002

Information about our Defined benefit funds is available at Defined benefit members.

The ATO superfundlookup.gov.au website can also help you find details about other super funds you may have.

Easy! Just scroll down. CSC's ABN and all of our scheme ABNs are listed at the bottom of our webpages. 

You can find information about CSC’s ethical investments in our product disclosure statements. You can also read more in our Stewardship Factsheet.

We believe that the most successful companies are those that consider the long-term sustainability of their business, not just the short-term drivers of current profitability.

We don’t automatically avoid companies associated with a negative theme (such as a high carbon footprint). Instead, we identify those companies at risk, work to understand the implications for their share price, and, where appropriate and practicable, support those companies to undertake activities that will reduce any undesirable outcome.

For example, we engage with companies identified as having large carbon footprints, and support them through a responsible transition of resources and processes towards reducing any undesirable climate consequences from the operation of their business.

From time-to-time, qualified professionals who provide advice to CSC members—such as financial advisers, accountants or legal representatives—may request information on behalf of a CSC member.

If you are a third-party adviser, please see our Access to information page for details about how to request information on behalf of a member.

Resources for advisers

There are benefits and risks to having money in your super account, rather than in the bank.

One of the benefits of super is that tax rates on super are often lower than regular tax on income and normal investment earnings, and you pay no tax on investment earnings if you are taking your super benefit as a pension. 

Another benefit of money in your super account is the power of compounding returns. Thanks to the power of compounding, super can be wealth building! As each year goes by, any earnings that your super makes are reinvested—essentially giving you the potential to earn investment returns on investment returns.

However, like any other investment, super is subject to the risk of investment loss. There are also restrictions on when and how you can access funds held in super, where there generally aren’t those restrictions placed on the funds you hold in your bank account.

Find out more on How super works.

Before you make any big financial decisions, we recommend you seek professional advice from a licensed financial planner*.

There are different rules around consolidation for each of our schemes. Find out more about finding and combining your super.

Whether or not it is beneficial for you to consolidate your super depends on your personal objectives, financial situation and needs. Before making a decision you should consider the impact of consolidation on any existing insurance you hold through your existing funds, and you may want to seek professional advice from a licensed financial planner.

You can update your contact details at any time using online services. Simply log in and update your details.

Alternatively, you can complete our Change of Personal Details form and send it to formsandapplicatons@csc.gov.au

If you’re currently a serving member of the ADF, your personal information, including your address, is regularly reported to us by the Department of Defence.  

About our financial planning Meet our planners

Call us at 1300 277 777, or email us at financial.advice@csc.gov.au. We’ll ask you a few questions to pinpoint exactly what kind of advice you need, and schedule a face-to-face or telephone appointment with one of our authorised financial planners.

If your current employer is contributing super to your CSC account, they should be able to update your name on their payroll system and send the update through to us. Check with your HR department to see if this is possible.

If your HR department can’t update us with your change of name, or if your employer doesn’t contribute to your CSC Fund, you will need to let us know directly by sending in a change of details form.

For us to be able to change your name on our records, we need certified copies of your:

• marriage certificate with your new name; OR
• birth certificate if you have changed back to your maiden name; OR
• change of name certificate if you have changed your name by deed poll.

Your identity documents must prove your original name (as held on our system), as well as how you transitioned from that name to your new name. All documents must be certified as true and correct copies by an appropriate person, such as a lawyer or Justice of the Peace. 

Take a look at what superannuation is and how it works:

How super works

CSC will submit your data to the ATO before 14 August 2024.

If you’ve opted to Go Digital, you’ll receive links to your Annual Statement and Digital Annual Statement Summary either by email or SMS.

To check where yours will be sent, log into online account to Go Digital and update your details. If you prefer to receive your Annual Statement through the post, we’ll mail it to your nominated postal address.

You can check your Annual Statement at any point after it’s been sent out by logging into your online account.

Your Annual Statement will include all the information specific to your CSC super account. This could include any contributions you’ve made, your investment performance, any insurance policies or cover attached to your superannuation, as well as what was deducted over the year—including withdrawals, tax and fees. Where possible, you will receive a projection of your balance and potential retirement income based on information available to us as at the date of the statement.

If you're not sure, get in contact with us and we'll take you through it.

If you haven't received your Annual Statement, you can log into your online account to access it. If you can’t access your online account, or you can’t find your Annual Statement online, contact us

Please note: We send paper Annual Statements in batches from the second week of September through to November 2022. If you haven’t received your paper Annual Statement, it may be because we haven’t sent it to you yet.

You can log into your online account to change your details.

We have consolidated and streamlined our disclosures in response to customer requests for simpler communications about our approach. We have addressed details in this section for customers who are interested in more information.

No. Our approach has not changed. We review our policy every 3 years. The CSC board last reviewed policies relevant for our ESG approach in September 2022.

Our holdings in oil and gas companies typically reflect their index weights in the benchmark stipulated by the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA) under the Your Future Your Super performance test (YFYS)¹. Investing part of the portfolio passively in the benchmark is a cost-effective way to manage customer investments to the regulator’s constraints.

¹Investment indices | APRA: CSC’s accumulation options operate under these regulations

We do not invest in companies which we know to be involved in activities contrary to Australian government rules and regulations, for example cluster munitions and landmines. We also exclude companies or industries where it is a cost-effective way to protect CSC portfolios from risks we believe are not justified by the returns.  For example:

• We divested of tobacco producers as this was a cost-effective way to protect the portfolio, in the long term, against loss of value from increasing regulation.
• We divested companies that derive 70% or more of their revenue from thermal coal (production and /or energy generation) because we viewed their long-term investment returns as under pressure from cleaner-energy competition.

We implement these decisions using MSCI’s Business Involvement Screening Research methodology.  This can mean some (immaterial¹) exposures are not identified, but this remains the most cost-effective way to managing these risks, in our view.

We do not divest (or threaten divestment) as a way to provoke companies to change.

Divestment neither withdraws capital from a company’s balance sheet, nor reduces the profitability of a company’s products or services; it merely sells ownership rights to another investor.

This means relinquishing effective channels for investor influence (ownership rights such as participating in director elections) without a corresponding benefit. Moreover, it requires accepting the risk that the buyer would use the ownership rights we relinquished to pursue outcomes contrary to our customers’ financial interests.

Some divestment advocates have more recently argued that the purpose of divestment is to generate damaging publicity for the divested company. We believe our continued ownership offers greater potential to elicit desired changes than one-off action to generate publicity.

CSC recognises the risks for long term investments predicted under more severe climate change scenarios and the goal of the Paris Agreement to limit carbon concentrations in the atmosphere.

CSC portfolios often exhibit low (and / or falling) carbon emissions and resemble investment products described as “Net Zero.”  However, portfolio characteristics do not map to impact on carbon emissions or concentrations in the physical world.  Moreover, we cannot confirm low and falling portfolio emissions will remain feasible through 2050, and wish to avoid giving the false impression that we can.

CSC’s approach to climate recognises actions decisively oriented to the following goals:

• Hedging customers’ portfolios against climate risks and
• Limiting atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.

Our climate risk policy recognises climate as a systematic risk across the portfolio.  We use scenario analysis and stress tests to estimate what impact climate risks could have on your retirement outcome (to the best of our ability, given the available data).

Our stress testing methodology follows the latest evolving recommendations of peak bodies globally including the International Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report 6 (IPCC AR6)¹, and strives to incorporate the aggregate implications from:

1. Direct risks to physical assets;
2. Risks from regulatory responses;
3. Risks from litigation and
4. Risks to the competitive position of assets risks under different rates of decarbonisation, across jurisdictions and through time. 

Our proactive and rigorous approach to investigating risk can lead us to non-consensus conclusions.   For example, we were the first Australian super fund to open our portfolio to carbon footprint analysis by the Climate Institute in 2009. This enabled us to assess and recognise the complexity and inaccuracies of such analysis well before others did.

¹Sixth Assessment Report — IPCC

Disruptive forces such as new technology, geopolitical trade, and social change have historically spurred innovation and industry development.  We routinely monitor these to identify risks and opportunities that result.

Climate-related regulation of fossil fuels is another of these and our investment and risk-management disciplines (including hedging) apply.  Our decision to exclude companies whose primary activity (>70% revenue) was producing thermal coal was a result of this process, as was our decision to embrace early opportunities in wind farm development.

We recognise potential stranding risks for more carbon-intensive oil, gas and metallurgical coal assets, but do not believe this applies (at this time) to the category as a whole.  Until energy storage and distribution enable renewable energy to reach necessary scale, we believe global consumption and development priorities will continue to fuel fossil fuel demand.  Policies that seek to hinder supply of fossil fuels, without first addressing demand, will remain difficult to sustain in this context.

We continue to monitor this.

Climate change is a system-wide risk, and our approach is accordingly rigorous. We focus our efforts where our core activities (investing for customer retirement incomes) have the greatest impact potential.   

We have concluded that CSC influence is most usefully directed to supporting reduced demand for hydrocarbons. For example:

• We were one of the earliest Australian superannuation funds to invest in wind farm developers in September 2015.  While earning strong returns, we helped to grow domestic renewable energy capacity – which now competes with fossil fuel generation.
• We engage companies, directors and others regarding their companies’ contribution to demand, and supported others to do the same.
• We have helped build the industry infrastructure that supports policymakers efforts to reduce demand, for instance via carbon pricing, including the Governance Advisory Service (later Regnan), Principles for Responsible Investing (PRI), and the Investor Group for Climate Change (IGCC). 

We focus on the governance of the companies in which we invest, because we believe that boards, comprised of directors with relevant expertise, commitment and integrity; are best placed to steer company strategy, identify, manage and communicate about a company’s assets, risks, and prospects (including ESG-related externalities relevant for the company).

We do not see a standalone ESG option as offering additional benefits for customer retirement outcomes. If an ESG risk is relevant to investment outcomes, we believe it is necessary to manage this across all of our portfolios. Likewise, if attractive financial characteristics of an investment are accompanied by environmental or social benefits, we see this as advantageous for all of our portfolios.

Active ownership refers to the intentional use of the rights that accompany equity ownership. 

Many investors’ involvement with companies is more transient, for example strategies that buy a company whose share price is temporarily depressed and sell it at a higher price as soon as it recovers. Active ownership is most common among investors who expect to be invested for longer periods of time.

CSC’s active ownership includes:

• Systematically voting at company meetings in accordance with our written voting principles.
• Systematically communicating CSC’s active owner, climate investment risk and proxy voting policies to its external investment managers.
• Selectively engaging companies directly.
• Identifying other cost-effective opportunities to use our influence as an investor, as these arise.

Universal owners are institutions with large, long-term and extensively diversified portfolios such as CSC’s, who are exposed to many sources of risk to their investments. 

Risks affecting investments are managed as part of our investment risk processes, however, when our investments are considered in aggregate, the single largest risk concerns the performance of the economy as a whole.  The performance of the economy can be at risk from financial issues (such as credit standards underlying the Global Financial Crisis in 2007) but also social issues (such as economic pressures that limit a population’s appetite for entrepreneurial activity) and environmental issues (such as water stress diminishing agricultural production, increasing food prices, and fuelling social unrest).

Universal owners recognise that on occasion, companies optimising for their own returns can undermine returns from the portfolio as a whole, and use active ownership to address this.

For example, regulation can reduce profits when it forces companies to bear costs associated with their carbon emissions.  We have nonetheless advocated for effective carbon regulation, via several investor collaborations, including the Governance Advisory Service (later Regnan) which we established in 2001, for which we won the United Nations Royal Award for excellence in sustainability in 2003.

CSC exercises all of its voting rights by casting a vote on every resolution put to the shareholders of every public company in our portfolio.

CSC’s voting policy provides guidance on the principles by which we cast votes.  We generally support management recommendations unless these are inconsistent with our Stewardship Principles.

We disclose our proxy voting results in summary form on a half yearly basis. We do not disclose the individual votes we cast at each company AGM, as such information can be misinterpreted.  For example, a vote against a company’s Climate plan may signal disagreement with its premises, opposition to its climate-focussed efforts, or dissatisfaction that the actions proposed are insufficient.

In our experience, public/media commentary often neglects such context even when it is made available. This external reporting can mislead our customers and correcting it can divert our staff from their primary role - looking after your retirement savings.

Our stewardship principles express what we prioritise when making use of our ownership rights and related avenues, and are designed to focus our efforts where we can be most effective. 

They emphasise:

• Secure shareholder rights, such as the right to determine a company’s board of directors and make decisions on major capital transactions.
• The establishment of boards / election of directors with strong strategic competencies, governance competencies, and who are conscientious with respect to company impacts and externalities
• Accountability to shareholders, via transparency about all of the above.

CSC’s principles reflect the reality that investors must delegate decisions about how companies are run, and rely on the decisions of directors they elect.

CSC collaborates with our suppliers to reduce the risks of modern slavery in our investment portfolio. See our annual Modern Slavery statement for details.

To date, we have not identified social housing opportunities that provide a compelling relative return. However, we continue to monitor and review opportunities in light of changes to policy on market structure, taxes, incentives etc.

We send regular investment and general information emails to all of our customers who wish to receive these emails.

You can also view your account through online services any time.

If you need assistance logging in to your account visit our ‘Contact us’ page to find the right email or phone number to call.

Our PSSap, ADF Super and CSCri contact centre is open between 8:30am and 6pm (AEST) and our CSS, PSS, MilitarySuper and DFRDB contact centre is open between 8am and 6pm (AEST).

Our easy-to-use glossary of superannuation terms can help simplify your learning process and make informed retirement decisions.

Because CSC looks after super funds designed specifically for Australian Government and Defence Force employees, you do have to be, or have been, an Australian Government employee or member of the Australian Defence Force to join a CSC scheme. 

Moving jobs doesn’t have to mean changing super funds. Find the information relevant to your scheme at changing jobs.

Defined benefit schemes (like CSS, PSS, and MillitarySuper) are great if you intend to stay with the same employer, such as the ADF or APS, for a long time. They were designed at a time where people stayed with one employer for the majority of their career.

Nowadays, the average person will work 17 jobs over five different careers! And so, with the changing nature of the Australian workforce, defined benefit schemes were deemed no longer fit for purpose and new schemes were opened to better suit the modern workforce.

The current type of superannuation accounts (aka ‘accumulation schemes’) are designed to be flexible and can move with you if you change your employment arrangement. 

All of our forms should have lodgement advice on them—usually on the back page. If you come across a form that does not have instructions on how to submit, you can email it to formsandapplications@csc.gov.au

A form is the way we gather information from you, a factsheet is the way we get information to you. You can find forms and factsheets under the 'advice and resources menu'. If you're after a factsheet, make sure you click the 'factsheets' tab on the 'factsheets and publications' page.

You will need to select your scheme from the drop down menu of scheme options to see forms and factsheets that are relevant to you.

Please refer to our fees page or your Product Disclosure Statement for the costs applicable to your fund.

When you invest in super, you’re actually purchasing units in a given investment option. The unit prices go up and down each day, in much the same way that a share does, based on movements in the market value. As the unit price changes, so does the overall value of your investment. When you make a withdrawal, you sell a number of units in that investment option.

The unit prices we report show the value of the portfolio's underlying assets at the close of business one business day earlier. This gives us time to collate data from international markets (as Australia is ahead of other financial markets by up to 24 hours), and reflect it in our fund valuations.

The unit price for an investment option reflects the total value of assets in that option (less fees not deducted directly from your account, expenses and taxes), divided by the number of all units issued in the investment option.

Generally, we take the available market value of assets in each investment option at the end of each business day, and use these values to calculate the unit price on the following business day—i.e. if we calculate the unit price for 1 September, it will be made available on 2 September (if it’s a business day).

If an unforeseeable event, such as a trading suspension in relevant markets, means we can’t calculate a unit price on schedule (i.e. on the next business day), we take all reasonable steps to recommence unit pricing as soon as possible.

ADF Super

Generally, ADF Super customers or ADF personnel who have chosen to contribute super to another fund, have access to death and invalidity benefits under ADF Cover. ADF Cover is a superannuation benefit, not insurance, and you do not pay insurance premiums. To access ADF Cover, eligibility criteria apply. You must be a serving member of the ADF, or a continuous full-time reservist under the age of 60, and be eligible for an ADF Super account to get automatic access to ADF Cover. MilitarySuper or DFRDB customers may not be covered by ADF Cover.

PSSap

We’ve used all of our experience to compare and choose an insurance provider and offering that we think will serve the best interests of the majority of our customers.

But, we also know that not all of our customers are the same. This is why you have total flexibility to tailor your cover through lifePLUS Choice, or cancel your lifePLUS cover altogether. You might want to consider having a conversation with a financial adviser before making any big decisions—PSSap customers have access to free single issue advice on insurance with our authorised^* financial planners.

If you’re thinking of changing or cancelling your cover at any time, you can give us a call on 1300 725 171 to get more information about what this means for you.  

You can vary your cover by:

• Using the LIFEapp online application tool available through your member services online; or
• Completing the application and variation form.

You can also cancel your cover by:

• Completing the Cancellation of Cover form.

Changes to the law in relation to certain insurance cover will become effective from 1 July 2019. Customers with a low balance and an inactive account may be impacted. 

To nominate, change or revoke a beneficiary you need to complete our Binding beneficiary nomination form. To be valid, your form must be signed and witnessed in a particular way—this is explained in the form for you. It’s important to remember to renew your nomination every three years for it to remain valid—we will aim to contact you before your current nomination expires, but you should also keep a note for your own records.

You may also make a non-binding beneficiary nomination via Member Services Online, which will not expire. Non-binding nominations give CSC guidance when making a decision about where to distribute your benefits in the event of your death, but we do not have to comply with those instructions. In the same way, mentioning your superannuation in your will may provide us with guidance on how to distribute your benefits, but will not be considered to be a binding instruction on CSC. 

We have launched our new digital portal. It’s a streamlined experience, improving the way you engage with your CSC super account/s online—anytime, anywhere.

Find out more, including how to register:

CSC Navigator