HOW WE KEEP UP WITH THE LATEST TRENDS

One of the great attributes of the Best of the Best awards is that they have always adapted and moved with the times. In this issue, there are five clear examples of why our awards remain current and relevant.

1. There’s a clear shift to align our awards with the movement towards investments that are focused on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors. You can now see who the top managed funds are in both Australian and international shares, all with a focus on ESG (pages 70 and 73).

We also highlight the super fund leaders that are not only pioneering the way forward in ESG investment, they’re living and breathing an ESG culture too (pages 92 and 95). We’ve also introduced a Best Green Loans category in banking.

2. In the superannuation, insurance and banking awards, 2021 marks a significant year whereby Money is moving away from its “cheapest” award titles and replacing them with “best value”.

This is a crucial point because it has shifted award criteria away from purely looking for the cheapest products to awarding ones that are low cost but give you added value. A good example is extra data offerings with mobile plans, which often nudge one product ahead of its competitors.

3. For the superannuation awards, we’ve looked beyond simply performance and fees to recognise funds that are communicating with and supporting their diverse membership. To learn more, see our new award for Best Innovation

– Community Partnerships on page 96.

4. A key milestone was reached for the NBN in 2020, with the overwhelming majority of households now NBN-connected. This means we’ve taken away the previous DSL award category, and now have two awards – for NBN50 and NBN100 plans – reflecting the wider shift to becoming a “Netflix nation”.

5. Given the popularity of SUVs and utes on our roads, it’s fitting that we’ve given these types of vehicles more prominence in 2021. Working with carsales.com.au, we’ve introduced the Best-Value Tradie Car (page 146). And in 2020 we introduced an electric vehicle category as another sign of keeping up with the market.