IN THIS ISSUE

The ASISA marketing and communications team once again entered the ASISA Annual Review in the SA Publication Forum Corporate Communications Competition.

The awards ceremony was held last week and we are exceptionally pleased with the outcome. The ASISA 2014 Annual Review titled “Enough is not Enough” received the following recognition:

• Runner up Best Annual Report 2015
• Certificates of Merit: Excellence in writing and communication
• 2015 Finalist: best writing

This is the second time that the ASISA marketing and communications team entered this competition. The aim is to measure our initiatives and efforts against those of corporate South Africa to see where we can learn and improve to ultimately provide our stakeholders with a top quality product.

If you have not yet seen our annual review, you can download it from www.asisa.org.za.

ASISA submitted comments on the Draft Default Regulations by the 30 September deadline. Written submissions from members were collated and discussed at two workshops held during September.  The final submission was prepared by a working group established to deal with the draft regulations. The ASISA Performance Fee working group under the Investments Board Committee dealt with the draft regulation that disallows performance fees.

We would like to thank the member representatives on the working group for helping us deliver under tight deadlines a well reasoned and substantive feedback document of 70 pages.

The FSB’s final two RDR workshops were held during September: Workstream 2 – Investments and Workstream 6 – Low Income Market. 

The FSB will now consider feedback received and may request more information or detail from the relevant workstreams. The aim is to issue a further discussion document together with a “RDR Roadmap” by the end of this year.

The preparation of a comprehensive submission on the DTC’s first VAT interim report was a big deliverable for September.

The submission was kindly prepared by Mark Silver of Deloitte, with input from members of the ASISA VAT working group, the Life Office Tax working group and the Collective Investment Schemes (CIS) Standing Committee.

The final submission was distributed to all members who participated and is available on request from Peter Stephan at ASISA.

The Standard on Unclaimed Assets requires that life insurers with ASISA membership intensify the level of tracing policyholders or beneficiaries in order to minimise the pool of assets that remains unclaimed.

Updated statistics on the tracing activities of long-term insurance members to the end of June 2015 show that life insurers have reunited 431 364 policyholders and beneficiaries with their unclaimed benefits since the Standard was implemented in June 2013. In total some 757 791 policyholders and beneficiaries must still be traced.

While the current Standard only applies to unclaimed long-term insurance benefits, this will change in January next year when the Standard becomes effective for Collective Investment Scheme (CIS) assets as well. ASISA is engaging with the Financial Services Board (FSB) on extending the principles contained in the Standard to cover unclaimed pension fund benefits.

Our collective investment schemes (CIS) industry celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. The country’s first unit trust portfolio was launched in June 1965 with assets under management of R600 000. Half a century later, at the end of June 2015, the industry offered investors 1 225 unit trust portfolios boasting assets under management of R1.8 trillion.

ASISA’s Education and Employment Equity Standing Committee launched the  “Let’s Talk Diversity” event in Cape Town on 17 September which was generously hosted by Investec.  The key concern addressed was why there are so few women in senior roles in the savings and investment industry.  This event also sought to bring role players within the industry together to embark on a discussion about gender mainstreaming.  It was encouraging to see many female students and interns in attendance, eager to engage around this topic as they stand on the cusp of their professional careers.

On 14 October, we will be talking diversity in Gauteng. We are privileged to be hosted by MMI Holdings in Centurion.  The aim of these events is to arrive at a recommended road map for companies who are lagging behind in the area of gender mainstreaming at senior levels.

To register for the event, please  click here.

We are excited about the fund’s recent investment into Noah Capital Markets, an independent black-owned financial services group that provides emerging market equity stock broking services to local and international institutional clients. The ED Fund’s R5 million investment will allow Noah to take on additional clients, increase trade volumes and play a more strategic role within ASISA members' supply chains.

In September the Fund approved an investment of R3.5 million into Judante Building Solutions, a black-owned family business operating in the small-scale repairs and building space. Catering predominantly to the short-term insurance sector, the Fund’s investment will enable the business to expand into the fabrication of built-in-cupboards using light steel frame building technology that will provide additional options in the Green Energy space for their customers.

The Fund also secured a groundbreaking investment from Liberty Holdings and Stanlib for the launch of Liberty’s Blue Skies Programme. This project will provide R90 million in business and financial support to industry aligned SME enterprises and suppliers. The partnership will provide an innovative combination of investment and acceleration support to create transformation, growth opportunities, strategic innovation and job creation to benefit our sector and country.
  
The ED Fund recently completed the second year of the Sanlam Enterprise and Supplier Development (ESD) Programme. The programme was launched in 2013 in partnership with the Fund to support the strategic growth and development of SME enterprises and suppliers linked to Sanlam's value chain. Having deployed R10 million to date, the programme has created more than 75 jobs with an average increase in revenue of 20% across the 112 SMEs supported at a cost of R59 000 per job.

The ASISA Academy is busy preparing a learning feast for 2016. A number of exciting new courses are being developed, which will be offered in addition to the 14 existing courses. The new offering will include an Investment Administration learnership, which will be offered in Johannesburg and Cape Town in partnership with the University of Johannesburg (UJ) and the SA Institute of Stockbrokers.

The learnership is a one-year programme commencing with a work-readiness intensive course followed by 11 months in the workplace during which the learners will be studying UJ’s Advanced Diploma in Financial Markets with evening lectures once a week. While for a number of years the Academy has been delivering UCT short courses in Johannesburg, it will soon be delivering UJ courses in Cape Town. We are proud to be working in partnership with such forward-thinking institutions. For more information on this learnership please click here.

The date has been set for the ASISA 2016 Assembly to be held at the Hilton Hotel in Sandton, Johannesburg. Please diarise the evening of Wednesday, 1 June 2016, for the welcome cocktail function and Thursday, 2 June 2016, for the Assembly. More detailed information will be made available closer to the time.