Lungile Msibi, Brand Mnager at Emperor Asset Management.
Emperor Asset Management, provider of a unique range of asset management products including unit trusts, segregated portfolios and hedge funds, has just launched the Emperor Asset Management debit card.
Emperor believes that this debit card will change the way people look at their investments. “Investing should not be any different from regular saving in the sense that it should give you peace of mind,” says Lungile Msibi, Brand Manager for Emperor Asset Management.
As a boutique asset manager, Emperor Asset Management is in the fortunate position of identifying a requirement within the industry (and the clients they serve) and responding to it in an agile and decisive manner. This is a differentiator that larger asset managers unfortunately do not possess. In addition to this, a majority of managers don’t utilise segregated portfolios (where each client’s investment portfolio is in their own name and tailored to their own specific requirements instead of being pooled with other investor’s funds) so they cannot individualise the client requirements, such as with their risk and return requirements.
The reasons for creating the card are twofold. Firstly, Emperor recognised that many South Africans save money for emergency purposes in many forms such as at the bank and in stokvels, because they want immediate access to it when an emergency arises. However, while their money is “waiting for an emergency” it isn’t seeing optimal growth. Secondly, many people have their money in a call account where they have access to their funds in 32 days or similar. While the interest earned in these accounts is good, putting those funds into an equity portfolio holds a lot more long-term value, with the added accessibility to the funds if an emergency arises.
The debit card will be benefitted retirement investors who are able to access the investment income they need while the rest of their money works for them in their portfolio (instead of them receiving a lump sum which doesn’t get fully utilised throughout the month.) In addition to this, there are children who have their pocket money deposited into their investment accounts, using what they need, with the rest remaining in their investment account. “It is clear that this (card) is a solution that is beneficial for everyone at every life stage,” Msibi affirms.
One could argue that an offering such as this would encourage people to tamper with their investments, which is counterproductive. “It is important to remember that we are not encouraging irresponsible spending of your investment capital. In an ideal world, your money would remain in an investment account without any withdrawals. We still believe in the long term investment philosophy and we want people to share this same view. But we also understand that life happens, and we want our clients to have that additional peace of mind. We want to encourage people to invest in wealth building products instead of leaving their money in no-growth vehicles,” Msibi adds.
The debit card is available to any Emperor Asset Management client who holds a Robert Falcon Scott (RFS) Strategy, a Sir Edmund Hillary Strategy (SEH) strategy or Sir John Ross (SJR) strategy.
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