Finance Minister states that NPF beneficiaries will still receive their due Government is taking the lead to reform the current pension system by abolishing the contribution to the National Pension Fund (NPF), while continuing to pay benefits to each and every one who has previously contributed to this fund. The…
An alliance between South Africa’s ruling party and labour unions is pushing for the mobilization of domestic pension funds to drive economic growth and urging caution about borrowing money from international financial institutions. A discussion document dated 25 May, prepared for meetings of the alliance members, cited the use of…
Namibia: August 2019 THE Government Institutions Pension Fund has said its chief executive officer, David Nuyoma, will meet the prosecutor general to understand how her office concluded that some N$600 million in pensioners' money that the pension fund lent to start-up businesses between 1995 and 2005 was lost and would…
August 23 2019 South Africa should investigate using worker pensions to fund finance development and infrastructure projects, president Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday. Speaking in a parliamentary Q&A session on Thursday (22 August) Ramaphosa said that the proposal had the backing of the Congress of South Trade Unions(Cosatu), Reuters reported.…
Please help IRFA to energise our retirement ecosystem by completing industry survey The theme of the annual IRFA conference to be held in Durban at the end of July emphasizes the interconnectivity and impact of all the components in our African retirement ecosystem. As the Institute of Retirement Funds Africa…
From MoneyWeb For the second time in three years the Aylett Equity Prescient Fund has been named by Morningstar as the Best South African Equity Fund. After winning the category in 2017, the fund was named as the 2019 winner at the Morningstar South Africa Fund Awards on Wednesday evening.…
Institute of Retirement Funds Africa announces best of the best at its annual awards ceremony The Institute of Retirement Funds Africa (IRFA) industry awards and recognition programme has evolved considerably since its initial inception as a “Communication Challenge” some 31 years ago, into a robust and respected programme which seeks…
The Public Investment Corporation inquiry kicked off with two executives saying they witnessed no legal breaches — or employees acting for their own personal benefit. The commission of inquiry into the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) started in Pretoria on Monday with officials from the country’s largest asset manager outlining its…
A new renewable energy investment vehicle has received a ZAR 1 billion commitment from Anglo South African Investec and a United Kingdom government investment vehicle, with the aim of providing financial support to, and generating returns from, the green energy sector in Africa. Revego Africa Energy has been set up…
An elaborate looting scheme by the Municipal Councillors' Pension Fund has been uncovered and the Hawk's are investigating the case. PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA - NOVEMBER 6: Reserve Bank Governor Gill Marcus shows off the new banknotes, which feature an image of former president Nelson Mandela on the front and images…
Opinion piece by Tracy Jensen, 10X Investments’ chief operating officer South Africa’s Public Investment Corporation (PIC), which has R2 trillion of assets under management, is in the news for all the wrong reasons. If the stories doing the rounds now are true, it might well be a concern for all…
Allan Greenblo, Editorial Director - Today’s Trustee It’s long overdue. Now the cat is set amongst the pigeons. Challenge employers and trustees on their selections. In the rapid consolidation of smaller standalone retirement funds into multi-employer umbrella arrangements, trustees find comfort in the lower costs and reduced administrative burdens offered…
Investing assets in crowdfunding platforms that further economic and social needs may well be the preferred next-generation alternative asset class for retirement funds, but South African regulation is not yet up to speed. By Deirdre Phillips, senior associate at Bowmans While retirement funds across Africa have started to invest in…
For the six months ended 31 August 2017 PSG Konsult grew recurring headline earnings per share by a satisfactory 10% and return on equity by 21%. “The continued upward trajectory of our key operating and financial metrics demonstrates the resilience of our business model despite the current challenging market and…
JOHANNESBURG– South African pension funds have cut their holdings in local government bonds to the lowest level in nearly 4-1/2 years because of political turbulence in the country, but yield-hungry foreign investors are proving less hesitant. Domestic pension funds have historically been the largest investors in South African government bonds,…
Cape Town – South Africa’s Pension Funds Adjudicator Muvhango Lukhaimane received close to 38% more complaints from pension fund members in the 2015/16 financial year. In the entity’s latest annual report, Lukhaimane said 9 667 new complaints were received, while she made 83% of rulings in favour of the complainants,…
Pretoria: Minister of Finance Malusi Gigaba has called on retirement funds to obey strict rules laid down by the pension funds regulator. In a message in the 2016/17 annual report of the Office of the Pension Funds Adjudicator (OPFA), the Minister expressed concern that there were too many cases of…
Could you please introduce your organisation briefly? As the name suggests, the Africa Pension Funds Network (APFN) is a network of African pension funds and their industry associations. APFN was inaugurated in the margins of the MFW4A Partnership Forum in Dakar, Senegal in June 2014. Our membership currently includes industry…
Cape Town: The massive growth of commercial umbrella funds, new entrants into this market, potentially far-reaching regulatory reforms, significant changes in benefit design and member communication, and an unusually high number of disability claims are all having a marked impact on South Africa’s employee benefits industry. Dawie de Villiers, CEO…
Muvhango Lukhaimane, Pension Funds Adjudicator Pretoria: The 2016/17 financial year was again a busy period for the Office of the Pension Funds Adjudicator (OPFA) with an average of 625 complaints being received each month, according to the pension industry regulator’s annual report. However, with streamlined systems in place, the OPFA…
Concern overestimates by FSB that at least R40bn remains due to former workers The legislation is needed to compel pension fund administrators to increase efforts to trace beneficiaries and pay out billions of rand in unclaimed funds, Treasury deputy director-general Ismail Momoniat says. The Financial Services Board (FSB) estimates more…
Johannesburg - Former finance minister Pravin Gordhan and economist Iraj Abedian threw down the gauntlet at the auditing industry on Wednesday evening, accusing it of looking the other way while their clients looted resources. Both said the relationship between auditor and businesses often becomes too cosy, facilitating abuses. Abedian and…
Allan Greenblo, Editorial Director Today’s Trustee By all means consider investment in them, but not exclusively on the basis of cost The debate between the relative merits of active and passive investment, growing in intensity with the rising prominence of exchange-traded funds, tends towards the simplistic. Comparisons of fees and…
Following recent media articles about Transnet Employees’ Pension Fund, the Financial Services Board (“FSB”) deems it necessary to clarify that certain public sector retirement funds, including three funds established under Transnet, are not regulated under the Pension Funds Act, 1956 and, therefore, are not under the supervision of the FSB.…
Default regulations: you still need to make active choices Shreekanth Sing, Technical Legal Adviser, PSG Wealth Having default retirement strategies in place does not take the responsibility away from you to consider appropriate investments or holistic financial planning needs. As of the end of August this year, when the Minister…
Megatrends in default investment strategies: What we can learn about post-retirement investment strategies from the UK and Australia Cape Town: Last week at private dinner engagements hosted by Sanlam Investments in Johannesburg and Cape Town, Lesley-Ann Morgan, Global Head of Defined Contribution and Retirement Strategies at Schroders UK, shared fascinating…
South Africa finds itself staring into the all-consuming eyes of junk status, and while some economists predict that a recession will follow, it is not all doom and gloom when it comes to financial growth. While economic growth predictions indicate that the South African economy will grow by 1.3% in…
Did you know that only two African countries exported more than they imported last year? Or that Morocco led the intra-African investment in 2016? These are just some of the latest realities about the continent revealed in the annual African Economic Outlook 2017 – produced by the African Development Bank…