HOW OUR WINNERS ARE CHOSEN

Hundreds and thousands of providers were examined to identify the award winners in the superannuation, managed funds, exchange traded funds, banking products and insurance categories in Money's Best of the Best 2026.

- DAVID GALLAGHER

Examining a marketplace that offers consumers a range of financial products is an important role for any independent organisation, including Rainmaker, publisher of Money.

Rainmaker has again applied its quantitative expertise to analyse market data and examine hundreds of product providers and thousands of products, choices and options over a period of up to 10 years. Reviewing each market segment requires a different approach and the sections below describe how it was done.

Superannuation

Superannuation assets now exceed $4.3 trillion, and member balances represent a sizable component of aggregate household wealth.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) data at June 2025 shows more than half of superannuation industry assets are invested by industry super funds (36%) (\'profit to members\' funds) and retail super funds (20%) (\'for profit\' or \'commercial super funds\'), with the remainder of the sector's assets being self-managed super funds (SMSFs) at 24%, public sector funds (14%), corporate super funds (1%) and other statutory or public exempt schemes (5%).

Moneys' superannuation awards span best performing products, the best value, the most innovative as well as those that deliver the best value insurance. To be eligible for the Money awards, a superannuation product must be a public offer and be AAA-rated by Rainmaker.

Identifying Australia's top performing superannuation products involved Rainmaker reviewing MySuper products (default 'flagship' products), and asset classes that include growth, balanced, moderate (capital stable), shares, property, bonds, cash and ESG investment options.