The findings were based on the Roy Morgan Single Source survey covering 15,525 people in the six months to August 2015.

The research company said while the $250,000 or greater category only represents 14.3 per cent of all superannuants, it was a very important segment accounting for 52.7 per cent of all super fund assets.

According to Roy Morgan, SMSFs were also competitive in the $700,000 or greater super fund balance category, scoring 85.8 per cent compared to retail funds at 81.1 per cent and 77.6 per cent for industry funds.

While there are only 2.5 per cent of superannuants in this category, this segment accounts for 17.5 per cent of total balances.

Roy Morgan Research industry communications director Norman Morris said that both industry funds and retail funds face potential losses to SMSFs from their higher-value members if satisfaction levels decline.

“The relative satisfaction across competitors in the over $250,000 group needs to be closely monitored because they hold over half of all superannuation funds and yet only account for 14.3 per cent of members,” he said.