IN THIS ISSUE

The long-term insurance industry statistics for the 12 months ended June 2015, released by ASISA at the end of August, indicate that the life insurance industry remains healthy. Life insurers held assets of R2.3 trillion at the end of June 2015. This represents an inflation-beating increase of 8% from the R2.1 trillion held at the end of June 2014.

Long-term insurance industry assets exceeded liabilities by four times the legal reserve buffer required. Insurers had increased their cash holdings and credit instruments during the period under review in line with Solvency Assessment and Management (SAM) requirements.

Policyholders and their beneficiaries received R366.8 billion in benefit payments from the South African life insurance industry in the 12 months ended June 2015. This represents a 14% increase in benefit payments over the same period ended June 2014.

Of concern is the 3% decrease in the number of risk policies bought by consumers over this period.

In the July edition of Dispatches we reported that the Financial Services Board (FSB) would be setting up workshops with industry bodies that had submitted comments in response to the Retail Distribution Review discussion document. The purpose of the workshops is to help the six internal FSB workstreams tasked with reviewing stakeholder comments ensure that the tenor of the written submissions is correctly interpreted and clarify any ambiguous feedback.

The following three workshops have been held: Workstream 1 – Adviser Categorisation, Workstream 3 – Long-term Risk and Workstream 5 - Sales Execution & Other Intermediary Services.

The final two workshops have now been scheduled for September: Workstream 2 – Investments and Workstream 6 – Low Income Market.  Workstream 4 deals with short-term insurance, which is not part of ASISA’s mandate.

ASISA is represented at the various workshops by senior policy advisor Rosemary Lightbody and various industry representatives who were involved in the development of the holistic ASISA position. ASISA feedback is provided after the workshops to the relevant ASISA Working Group representatives.

The new ASISA Collective Investment Schemes Performance Fee Standard was approved by the ASISA Board in August 2015.  The Standard comes into effect on 1 January 2017.  The next step will be to extend the scope of the Standard to hedge funds, life products and segregated funds.

A policy paper titled “Strengthening South Africa’s Resolution Framework for Financial Institutions” was published by National Treasury, the FSB and the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) on 13 August 2015.

The paper sets out the motivation, principles and policy proposals for a strengthened framework for the resolution of designated resolution institutions (DRIs) in South Africa.  It is a position paper that is intended to solicit public comment and to serve as a basis for further industry discussions in preparation for the drafting of a Special Resolution Bill for DRIs.  

We are busy setting up a working group and comments will be submitted by the deadline of 15 October 2015.

This August was the busiest month ever at the Academy with 10 different courses hosted in Cape Town and Johannesburg. During the month the Academy also achieved a major milestone with the enrollment of student number 4 000.

The Academy also successfully brought to market two new courses - the Discounted Cashflow and Decision Modelling Short Course and the Communicators’ Bootcamp. Bookings for the Retirement Fund Trustee Education workshops continue to accelerate with the labour union NUMSA booking five September workshops for their fund trustees in Tshwane, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Durban.

ASISA’s Education and Employment Equity Standing Committee has decided to take the lid off the gender jar and launch a public engagement on why there are so few women occupying senior roles in the savings and investment industry.

As part of ASISA’s drive to bring about change in this area, ASISA will be hosting “Let’s Talk Diversity:  A discussion to inspire gender mainstreaming in the savings and investment industry”.

The ‘Let’s Talk Diversity’ events are scheduled for 17 September in Cape Town and 14 October in Johannesburg, with the aim of arriving at a road map for action to achieve gender equality in the savings and investment industry. 

To register for the event, please  click here.

Kind regards