Salaam Super Review (2026): Fees, Options, Insurance and the Crescent Record

Salaam superannuation is a Shariah-compliant division of the Russell Investments Master Trust, issued by trustee Total Risk Management Pty Ltd (AFSL 238790) and sponsored by Salaam Wealth Funds Management, the company formerly known as Crescent Wealth. With Hejaz Islamic Super closed to contributions from 30 September 2026, it is the only dedicated Islamic super fund in Australia still taking new members. It offers three options, Growth, Balanced and Defensive, with administration fees of 0.21% plus $60 a year and estimated investment fees of 1.34%, 1.36% and 1.13% respectively, returned 10.59%, 8.57% and 6.81% in the year to 30 June 2026 before administration fees, insures through TAL, and is overseen by Dar Al Sharia. This review sets out the structure, the fees, the performance-test history, and who should join.

Who actually runs Salaam Super: the structure table

The disclaimer on every Salaam super page is the most useful paragraph on the site, because it names each party. Members are in the Russell Investments Master Trust, a large APRA-regulated fund; Salaam is a division of it, not a fund of its own. The trustee that holds the licence and the legal duty is Total Risk Management, a Russell Investments entity. Salaam Wealth Funds Management, which holds its own AFSL, is the sponsor responsible for marketing and member outreach and is expressly "not a representative of TRM, nor a related body corporate". Advice, if you take it, comes from Russell Investments Financial Solutions or Link Advice, and the app from Russell Investments Employee Benefits. The Salaam provider profile describes this as the institutional pole of Australian Islamic finance, and the table below is the reason.

The FAQ explains how this came about. As at 1 June 2024 Crescent Wealth and the whole Crescent group rebranded as Salaam, and from that date Salaam superannuation became part of the Russell Investments Master Trust; the 2023 to 2024 financial year's returns were split between the old Crescent Wealth Super Fund for eleven months and the new division for June. A member joining today therefore gets Russell Investments' custody, administration and compliance infrastructure with Salaam's Shariah framework on top, which is a different proposition from the self-contained fund Crescent Wealth ran.

The three investment options and what each one costs

Each option page prints the PDS figures. All three share the same administration charge of 0.21% of the account balance a year plus $60. Investment fees differ, and the site is careful to label them forward-looking estimates with no performance fee. The target allocations are ranges, not fixed splits.

Three things stand out. First, Balanced is estimated to cost slightly more than Growth, which is unusual and worth asking about; the Balanced page itself calls it the "lower cost option", so the estimates and the marketing copy do not match. Second, the Growth and Balanced pages both print a long-term risk level of "Low", while Defensive prints "Medium"; that is as published, and it looks inverted, so read the PDS risk measure rather than the web label. Third, on a $100,000 balance the total of administration, investment and transaction costs on Growth comes to roughly $1,640 a year on the published percentages plus the $60, which is in the same range as Hejaz's closed Growth option (1.00% investment, 0.05% transaction, 0.49% plus $65 administration, per Hejaz's own fee page) and above a typical large industry fund's MySuper option. The Hejaz versus Salaam comparison was written when both were open; the fee gap it described has not closed, but the choice has.

Published performance and how to read it

Salaam's performance snapshot page shows returns for the financial year to 30 June 2026 of 10.59% for Growth, 8.57% for Balanced and 6.81% for Defensive. The footnote matters: these are calculated after tax and investment management expenses but before administration fees, so a member's own return on a modest balance will be lower by the 0.21% plus $60. The page links to a fuller table that it says updates daily and takes up to ten seconds to load; we did not fetch that table, so longer-term figures are not stated here and should be read from the member site or the PDS.

One year is not a record. The FAQ acknowledges that "a number of the Crescent Wealth Super Fund investment options were deemed to have failed" APRA's annual performance test, and argues that the benchmark does not account for Shariah constraints such as the prohibition on banks. That argument has merit, since an index-relative test punishes any fund that structurally cannot hold a third of the ASX, but it is also the argument every underperforming fund makes. APRA's 2026 test assessed 50 MySuper products and 356 non-platform and 141 platform trustee-directed products; Salaam's options, as choice products inside a master trust, fall into the trustee-directed category, and the result for each is published in APRA's downloadable results on apra.gov.au. Check the current year's entry for the Russell Investments Master Trust Shariah options before you join rather than relying on the FAQ's framing or ours.

Insurance inside Salaam Super

Salaam's forms and documents page lists an Insurance, Fees and Costs guide, an insurance election form, an "Insurance With TAL" document and a standard cover application form, which establishes that life insurance inside the fund is provided by TAL, a conventional life insurer. The pages we fetched do not state the default cover design, the premium rates or whether cover is switched on automatically for new members, so those answers sit in the guide. For a Shariah-conscious member this is the one part of the fund that is not Islamic in form: Salaam's own screening excludes conventional insurance companies from the portfolio, yet member protection is bought from one, because no takaful life product exists in the Australian super system. The takaful versus insurance hub explains the necessity argument scholars use. If you object, the election form is the mechanism to opt out, and you should then arrange protection elsewhere before cancelling.

Shariah oversight: Dar Al Sharia, AAOIFI and purification

Salaam's Shariah compliance page is specific. It follows AAOIFI standards and states that Salaam is a member of AAOIFI and of the RFI Foundation. Its independent Shariah advisors are Dar Al Sharia, described on the site as a leading global group of Islamic finance scholars, which reviews investment selections, certifies compliance, oversees screens, assesses changes in company activities and guides purification. Monitoring is described as continuous, with quarterly re-screens, alerts on changes in company activity and annual audits; a company that fails is removed in line with Shariah guidelines. Impure income such as unavoidable bank interest is stripped from returns and donated to charity, with the process documented. The exclusion list is the standard one: interest-based banking, conventional insurance, gambling, alcohol, tobacco, pornography, weapons, pork and impermissible entertainment, plus companies with excessive debt or significant impure income.

What is not published on these pages is the Shariah certificate itself, the names of the Dar Al Sharia scholars assigned, or the numerical thresholds used for debt and impure income. The halal superannuation guide explains why those thresholds matter when a fund holds Australian equities, and the questions to put to Salaam are the same as for any fund: which standard, which ratios, who signed, when, and where the purification money went.

iQ Retirement and the transition for Hejaz members

iQ Retirement is the Russell Investments Master Trust's account-based pension, and Salaam has arranged for three Shariah-compliant options inside it. The page describes flexible income payments, a transition-to-retirement use case, online access, and a sector focus on healthcare and information technology, but prints no fees; those are in the iQ Retirement PDS, which the page says is available on request. For a retiree, the attraction is that super and pension sit in one trust with one login and one Shariah framework, which the halal retirement income article shows is otherwise hard to assemble.

For a Hejaz member the timeline is set by Hejaz's Significant Event Notice, which Salaam reproduces: contributions stopped 30 September 2026, an initial transfer on or around 10 October 2026, a 12 October 2026 deadline to nominate a receiving fund before the balance goes to the ATO, and the remainder by the end of February 2027. Salaam's page provides its letter of compliance and super choice form for employers, states that joining takes under five minutes, and reminds members that Hejaz insurance may lapse when the account closes. Salaam is also explicit that it has no affiliation with Hejaz, AMG Super or Equity Trustees and that members may choose any complying fund; the Hejaz closure guide covers the alternatives.

• Open the new account first and get the member number, then give your employer the compliance letter and choice form.
• Ask the new fund to initiate the rollover so Hejaz receives instructions before 12 October 2026.
• Check insurance in both funds before the Hejaz account closes, because cover ends with the balance.
• Log in to myGov after 10 October 2026 to confirm the first transfer arrived and nothing went to ATO-held super.
• Keep the final Hejaz statement, expected around February 2027, for your zakat and tax records.

Verdict: who should join Salaam Super

An ex-Hejaz member who wants to stay in a whole-of-balance Shariah fund has one open door, and it is this one; join before 12 October 2026, choose the option whose allocation range matches your old Hejaz option (Growth 75/25 maps closest to Salaam Balanced's 60 to 80% growth range, not Salaam Growth), and sort insurance in the same week. A new employee choosing a first fund should weigh the fees honestly: roughly 1.6% all-in on Growth is high against mainstream MySuper options, and the value you are buying is Shariah screening plus Russell Investments' administration, not low cost; read the switching to halal super guide and the halal superannuation hub before deciding whether a mainstream fund's ethical option gets you close enough. A retiree considering iQ Retirement should request the pension PDS, compare its fees with the accumulation figures above, and confirm that all three Shariah options are available in pension phase, which the site states. Anyone can and should check the current APRA test result for the options before signing. Facts checked against salaam.com.au, apra.gov.au, hejazfs.com.au on 1 October 2026.

Frequently asked questions

Is Salaam Super halal?

Salaam states that all investments in its three options are screened to AAOIFI standards, that Dar Al Sharia independently reviews, certifies and audits them, that re-screening is quarterly with annual audits, and that any impure income is purified to charity. Insurance inside the fund is conventional cover from TAL, which members can decline. The certificate, scholar names and numerical screening ratios are not on the public pages, so request them.

What are Salaam Super's fees?

Every option charges administration of 0.21% of the balance a year plus $60. Estimated investment fees are 1.34% for Growth, 1.36% for Balanced and 1.13% for Defensive, with transaction costs of 0.03%, 0.03% and 0.02%. There are no performance fees. Insurance premiums apply if you hold cover. On a $100,000 Growth balance the published percentages total roughly $1,640 a year plus $60.

How has Salaam Super performed?

For the financial year to 30 June 2026 the snapshot shows 10.59% for Growth, 8.57% for Balanced and 6.81% for Defensive, after tax and investment costs but before administration fees. Longer histories are in the full performance table on the Salaam site and in the PDS. Earlier Crescent Wealth options failed APRA's performance test, which Salaam attributes to benchmarks that ignore Shariah constraints.

What is the difference between Salaam Super and Crescent Wealth?

They are the same sponsor under a new name. Crescent Wealth rebranded as Salaam on 1 June 2024 and moved its members into the Russell Investments Master Trust, where Total Risk Management is trustee. The old Crescent Wealth Super Fund no longer operates as a standalone fund; Salaam superannuation is a division of the master trust, with the fund ABN 89 384 753 567 and USI TRM0001AU.

Does Salaam Super include insurance?

Yes. The forms page lists an Insurance, Fees and Costs guide, an insurance election form, an Insurance With TAL document and a standard cover application, so life cover is provided through TAL. Premium rates and default cover design are in the guide rather than on the web pages. Members who do not want conventional cover can use the election form to opt out, and should arrange replacement protection first.

Can I move from Salaam Super into a pension?

Yes. iQ Retirement is the Russell Investments Master Trust's account-based pension and includes three Shariah-compliant options arranged by Salaam, usable for a full retirement income or a transition-to-retirement strategy. Fees for the pension are in the iQ Retirement PDS, available by calling 1300 926 626, rather than on the web page. The same trustee, login and Shariah framework apply.