The Minister of Finance met the CEOs of service providers in the retirement fund industry on Thursday, 20 June 2013 to discuss the 2012 and 2013 Budget Retirement Reform proposals.
The primary objective for both the industry and Government is to ensure that the savings and investment industry serves the interest of customers, in line with the principles of the Treat Customers Fairly (TCF) initiative. The meeting focused on costs and charges, recognising the primary role that the industry and Government, working together, can play in bringing down costs and charges.
Since publishing the overview document on retirement reform, Strengthening Retirement Savings: Overview of the 2012 Budget Proposals, on 14 May 2012, National Treasury has released four technical discussion papers: Enabling a better income in retirement; Preservation, portability and governance for retirement funds (both released on 21 September 2012); Incentivising non-retirement household savings and Simplifying the tax treatment of retirement funds (both released on 4 October 2012).
The final discussion paper, Charges in South African Retirement Schemes, will be released shortly. It contains some findings on poor market practices, despite significant progress and improvements made by the retirement fund industry over the last couple of years.
Please click here to download the full media release which contains details of the proposed outcomes which the industry and National Treasury have committed themselves to.
