FLEXIBLE TO ALIGN WITH EMPLOYER REWARD STRATEGY, INCLUDING NOT HANDCUFFING INTO FORCED RETIREMENT PATH

As with any umbrella fund, there are special rules created and approved for each participating employer. These rules are approved, provided within the fund mandate, member interest and legal.

The purpose of the special rules are to ensure that the fund operates within the reward methodology and policies of the employer, which are mostly an integral part of supporting the employer’s business objectives.

This ensures that the employer remains in control of the arrangement, subject to the rules of the scheme, especially as the funding model of the international retirement fund is employer only contributions.

Another principle of good practice is that we do not offer or otherwise subscribe to a model where there must be forced contributions for a period, the absence of which there are heavy penalty charges.

This practice has its routes in advisors ‘selling’ a policy and taking commission upfront on future contributions. Inherently, there is a material conflict of interest in this remuneration model of advisors and bias in the investment community towards this approach, for obvious remuneration reasons.

A critical design aspect is that of compulsory annuitisation on retirement, which is a model we fully support for vulnerable segments of employees; however, makes no sense for well compensated executives and other international employees. As our fund cater only for the latter, we allow various withdrawal mechanisms, including full encashment or settlement, upon termination of membership.