Want to know more?
Are you interested in unlocking data across your business? Get in touch.
Unlocking the value trapped in superannuation data
Superannuation
How an Australian super fund built a secure, centralised data lake to power hyper-personalised member engagement and AI readiness
Superannuation funds collect, manage and analyse vast amounts of data, including member profile information, investment performance and complex regulatory reporting requirements. However, this data is often trapped in legacy systems, disjointed administrative platforms and operational silos, inaccessible to key teams across the business who need it most.
Eager to maximise the value of its data, improve internal operations and deliver modern, hyper-personalised member experiences, a leading Australian superannuation fund wanted to create a centralised, cloud-based data lake under direct control of the fund’s data team.
Equal Experts partnered with the fund to establish robust data pipelines, embed data engineering best practices and introduce data modelling capabilities. To demonstrate the value of the data lake to the business, two high-priority member-focused use cases were also created: integrating CRM data to support data-driven member retention activities and powering contextual push notifications within the fund’s mobile application.
Outcomes
A single source of truth
in a centralised data lake
Upskilled data team
by embedding modern data practices for long-term scale
Insight generation
with reliable data available to more teams
About the client
Our client is a leading industry super fund in Australia, supporting thousands of Australians with their superannuation. As one of the country’s largest funds, it manages tens of billions in retirement savings, focusing on delivering strong long-term returns and modern digital experiences for its large national membership base.
Industry
Superannuation
Organisation size
Large superannuation fund
Location
Australia
Length of project
9 months
Challenge
Siloed data and static member snapshots
A leading Australian profit-for-members superannuation fund held vast volumes of data, but internal teams could only access isolated, fragmented snapshots. Static, basic information, such as member age or account balance, failed to capture the dynamic nature of modern life events, including parental leave, career transitions, or complex retirement plans.
Siloed, inaccessible data presented significant challenges for the fund:
- Disjointed member experiences: Incomplete data prevented proactive and personalised member support during critical moments.
- Compliance friction: Fragmented systems increased the administrative burden of maintaining accurate, secure records across the organisation.
- Stalled AI ambitions: Advanced analytics, automation and AI opportunities remained out of reach due to a lack of clean, structured and accessible data.
The fund needed a secure, centralised data lake to hold all data in one place and enable teams to access the information for their specific requirements.
Solution
Building a secure, accessible data foundation
Equal Experts partnered with the fund to architect a centralised cloud data lake and power automated, reliable data pipelines. The approach covered end-to-end pipeline development, from ingestion to downstream delivery to multiple consuming systems, incorporating automated testing and strict data controls.
Working alongside the fund’s engineers in an integrated squad enabled the embedding of agile ways of working, modern data modelling techniques, and sustainable operational practices, upskilling the fund’s data team.
To demonstrate the value of the data lake to the business quickly, two specific use cases were prioritised:
- Member retention: Connecting CRM data to support member engagement teams to reach members at the right moment.
- Mobile app engagement: Enabling event-triggered mobile push notifications to guide members at key moments.
Results
Data foundations ready for the future
By shifting from disjointed legacy data silos into a centralised cloud-native data lake, the fund transformed inaccessible, messy data into a strategic asset.
- Centralised single source of truth: Consolidated member and operational data into a single, reliable location.
- Skills for the future: Supported the data team to feel confident in modern data engineering practices, rapidly onboard new data sources and scale pipeline capabilities.
- Insight generation: Enabled teams across the business to securely access and use accurate data for their specific operational requirements.
- Targeted member engagement: Unblocked CRM data to proactively support data-driven retention initiatives and power mobile app push notifications at important moments.
- AI readiness: Provided clean, structured, accessible data foundations required to power future AI opportunities.
Conclusion
By establishing a secure, centralised data lake, the fund successfully eliminated data silos, reduced governance friction, and unlocked actionable insights across the organisation. The superannuation fund now has a modern, flexible foundation which is already supporting AI initiatives and improved, hyper-personalised member engagement activities.