First for the professional personal financial adviser
31 AUGUST 2025 R69.95 INCL VAT
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WOMEN IN FINANCIAL SERVICES Women are increasingly shaping the financial services landscape – as advisers, leaders and clients. We celebrate their progress, examine their challenges and evaulate the powerful impact of gender diversity. Pg 7-11
EMPLOYEE BENEFITS With rising employee expectations and economic uncertainty, benefits strategies are changing swiftly. This article explores how financial advisers can help clients build competitive, cost-effective offerings that attract and retain talent. Cover story + Pg 14 - 16
SHARI’AH INVESTING Demand for ethical, faith-based investing is growing steadily. We look at how Shari’ah-compliant investment solutions offer both financial returns and values-driven impact. Pg 17 - 18
BEHAVIOURAL FINANCE Understanding how clients think about money is as important as the numbers themselves. This feature unpacks key behavioural finance insights to help advisers better guide decision-making and manage bias.
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Pg 20-23
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Reframing Investments for Employee Benefits:
Why cost, clarity and indexing matter more than ever By Sandy Welch
A
Editor, MoneyMarketing
s the financial landscape grows more complex, the way we think about employee benefits, especially within the retirement space, must evolve. According to Louis Theron, Head of Investments at Liberty Corporate Benefits, this evolution is already well underway. “For us, it’s not just about umbrella funds anymore,” he says. “It’s about becoming a relevant and trusted institutional-grade investment brand in our own right.” Shifting the perception of value Liberty, as part of the Standard Bank Group’s Insurance and Asset Management cluster, has had a longstanding presence in the corporate benefits space. But in recent years, says Theron, Liberty Corporate Benefits has placed renewed focus on positioning itself as more than just an insurer. “We’ve invested significantly in our institutional investment capabilities, and our portfolios and annuity products for this market segment have been performing well,” he notes. “That’s why we want to be seen not only as a provider of umbrella fund solutions, but as a serious player when it comes to broader structured, policy-backed investment offerings.” To support this strategic direction, Liberty Corporate Benefits has combined its internal teams, merging investment, annuity product and operational capabilities into a single integrated unit of approximately 40 experienced professionals. This ensures end-to-end delivery, from product and proposition design to risk management and daily asset-liability matching and other investment operation functions. “In the past, our teams were a bit siloed,” admits Theron. “But if we want to grow our assets under management and stay relevant in the market, the back end has to be as streamlined as the front.” A strategic focus on cost efficiency One of the biggest drivers of this repositioning has been a sharpened focus on fees –something that matters deeply to both pre- and post-retirement outcomes. “The reality is that lower costs translate into better retirement savings and better retirement income levels for members,” says Theron. “And trustees now have a much more active role in negotiating
institutional-level fees, thanks to the 2019 Default Regulations under the Pension Funds Act. Fees are no longer just a number on a fact sheet,” says Theron. “They’re part of the value conversation. And as advisers, that’s where you have the power to make a real difference.” This has created an opportunity for Liberty Corporate Benefits to offer not just umbrella fund solutions, but competitively priced annuity products, including living annuities, guaranteed increasing life annuities, and with-profit life annuity options, all at institutional rates. “Even if a client works with an independent adviser, they can access these annuities, provided their retirement fund has contracted with us,” he explains. The role of index tracking At the heart of Liberty Corporate Benefits’ investment customer value proposition is a strong commitment to index tracking as the solution for a relevant customer need. While active management certainly has a role to play, Theron believes index solutions are gaining serious traction, especially in South Africa’s institutional retirement space. Theron quoted research done by 10X Investments, showing that “in the US, more than 50% of all investable assets are in index-tracking funds. In South Africa, that number is still below 10%. That leaves a massive opportunity – in the trillions of rands – for growth in this space. If that same expectation was to flow into South Africa, then we are going to see a lot of opportunities for index tracking providers,” says Theron. The rationale is compelling, according to the S&P Indices Versus Active (SPIVA) South Africa Scorecard: not only are 92% of active equity managers underperforming their benchmarks over the past decade, but they also tend to charge higher fees, creating a double burden for members. “That’s a bleak outcome,” he adds. “Traditional, vanilla index tracking portfolios by design aim to meet the market, giving trustees more certainty and stability when matching long-term investment objectives.” Continued on next page
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