Retirement fund capabilities

GTC operates the 6th largest commercial umbrella retirement fund in South Africa as well as various stand-alone retirement funds, catering for some 350 companies with over 100 000 members

Services include administration, fund accounting, consulting, investment management, counselling, financial planning and trustee reporting. GTC has consistently been awarded the PMR Diamond Award and has been nominated by them as the highest scoring retirement fund provider in the category between 100 000 and 150 000 members.

Benefit consulting

Benefit consultants will engage with trustees, management boards and other senior decision makers within a company. They are responsible for reporting on legal and regulatory changes, they are responsible for liaising with the administrators and ensuring that members are engaged with, in accordance with regulation and the service levels committed to with the company. They will work closely with the consultants who are responsible for the member engagement as well as other integrated service providers such as healthcare and payroll. All these activities will assist with the smooth operation of a retirement fund.

Fund administration

The people involved in the administration of your retirement fund constitute the “engine room” of the retirement fund. It is their responsibility to ensure that every member’s contribution received is apportioned accurately in terms of the rules of the fund. This entails the allocation and payment of risk premiums, fees and the investment of the net contribution. Fund and individual member records are maintained on the administration system.

The administration team is also responsible for the processing and payment of all claims when service terminates, and also settlements in respect of divorce and maintenance claims. The processing of any claim will involve obtaining a tax directive, meaning the member must have a valid tax number in order to pay a claim.

Investment analytics and investment administration

Distinct from the retirement fund administration, is the important function of administering the fund’s investments so that members’ records are updated accurately with the value of investment units. It is their responsibility to manage the investments of the contributions paid and to disinvest accumulated values in respect of exiting members.

The construction of investment portfolios is a very complex and challenging undertaking. This challenge ranges from deciding in which asset classes to invest, through to which asset managers to use. Just choosing the asset managers is a very challenging matter given the number of asset managers operating in the market, which increases exponentially when the international portion of the investments are considered. Portfolios are constructed in accordance with the desired risk profiles of the portfolios on offer and a combination of active and passive solutions are employed. GTC’s investment analytics team performs this function and guide the decision makers into understanding which portfolios to make available to their employees, and whether individual investment choice should be offered. Regular reporting enables decision makers and members alike to remain updated on their investments and to understand the principles on which decisions should be based. 

Risk benefit consulting

Risk benefits is the collective term of various insurances that employees of a company or members of a particular retirement fund participate in as a result of their conditions of employment. Purchased from a licenced and accredited insurer, these insurance benefits are usually determined by the decision makers of a particular company. Many of these risk benefits are not actually part of the retirement fund, but provided via separate insurance policies, in the name of the employer.

 

Advising a company of the most appropriate insurer, together with the most appropriate construction of the product for each of the elected areas of insurance (and this could cover anything from children’s education, to temporary disability, to highly specialised insurance such as aviation licences) is a highly specialised area of expertise. This skillset usually resides within the benefit consulting team. Once implemented, it is the job of the fund administrators and the benefit consultants to ensure the ongoing management of this insurance which will have considered tax efficiency, regulatory compliance and cost-effectiveness.

Member consulting

A modern retirement fund is much more than the seldom wanted, compulsorily purchased company structured pension fund of the past. The new approach is to help members understand that the retirement fund and group risk benefits form the cornerstone of a much larger and more integrated platform for each members elected wealth creation as he or she progresses through the career. It needs to link with personalised individual member savings strategies and report on this together with the voluntary discretionary additional investments, savings, and insurances that a member may elect to aggregate.

 

Recent legislation has made this integration a reality. It is no longer a requirement that a member exit a fund when they leave a company’s employment. Whilst this investment journey has become more streamlined and integrated, it is a highly complex undertaking. Professional financial assistance is almost always needed. GTC’s RunwayEdge provides the capacity for member consultants to become involved, alongside their colleagues in the benefit consulting and fund administration arena.

Healthcare consulting

Very often managed separately from the old-fashioned retirement fund methodology, healthcare is actually an integral and vitally important employee benefit that should be concurrently managed, reported on and financially considered as a component of the employee benefits within a company sponsored retirement fund.

 

Advice and consulting in this dynamic and ever-changing field should be far more than the postman requirements of the medical aid consultant of old. Understanding the differences in benefits, the actuarial basis of financial reserves and premium calculation, are important considerations when electing and staying with a medical aid provider.

 

This highly specialised employee benefit offering requires professional technical understanding. Appointing the appropriate healthcare consultant will ensure that this significant financial spend is managed effectively.

MAPS team

Altertude – the client engagement interface which combines all GTC’s various products and services for the benefit of each fund member – is facilitated by a team of professional, accredited financial advisors within GTC.
The personnel within the Member Advice Portal Support (MAPS) team are all experienced planners, each of whom has the unique additional discipline of being knowledgeable about retirement fund rules, group risk and tax structures, including the specific dispensation that applies to the in-fund options.
Majority of the team members have extensive retirement fund benefit consulting experience. All are uniquely positioned to provide the single point of unified financial advice that GTC so strongly advocates, merging a client’s retirement fund benefits with the personalised planning that will always be unique to each investor.
Within the MAPS team are specialists in all sectors that make up a holistic financial wellness programme. These disciplines include retirement funds, discretionary investing, risk insurance, short-term insurance, wills, estate planning, healthcare, and tax. True North – GTC’s technology based financial wellness toolkit – is the cornerstone of this complex interface.
The option of whether to access TrueNorth privately or to engage with the assistance of a MAPS consultant in the pursuit of financial wellness, remains available.
These MAPS team members remain available to guide you through Altertude and all its components, from on-boarding as a new GTC client, to realising the fruits of many years of careful and meticulous planning, into retirement – as well providing guidance with many of the additional eventualities which life throws at you along the way.

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