The problem.
Most Australians approach retirement without a clear picture of what their money can do, and most super funds have no scalable way to help them figure it out. Personal advice is great, but expensive and slow. Generic calculators are everywhere, and don't help.
Aware Super wanted to close that gap: personalised guidance on the path to retirement for every member, without sending each of them to a one-on-one adviser.
The approach.
We started with the customer, not the regulation. Long conversations with members about what they want to know, and what they're afraid to ask. From there we worked backwards into what the product had to be, and then further backwards into what it had to be allowed to be.
- Mapped the decisions a member needs to make as they approach retirement.
- Designed a tool that starts from the questions members bring ("how much can I spend, and will it last?") rather than the ones the rules are written around.
- Built the governance and the product in parallel, so neither was waiting on the other.
The outcome.
Retirement Manager is live to Aware Super's members and available to the 25,000 who retire each year. It produces more than 1,000 statements of advice a month, and retirees who use it are 78% more likely to draw more than the minimum pension, which was the whole point.
It won People's Choice for Investment Innovation at the 2026 Finder Awards and was a judged finalist in the same category.
What I learned.
No two retirees are the same. Designing for a range of personas and personal situations is tough. 95% of the effort goes into 10% of the edge cases.