Moonstone: Profile change required for collective investment schemes

Last week we discussed the steps required to add Retail Pension Benefits (license category 1.15) to your license profile free of charge, and why it was necessary to do so at the earliest possible opportunity.

This week we again remind those of you who market investment products, but who do not have Collective Investment Schemes (license category 1.14) listed on their licenses, to apply for the required profile change as a matter of urgency.

When Sanlam listed their products, with the corresponding license categories next to it, 84% of their products could include investments that used collective investment schemes as an underlying asset, and hence required that the FSP had to be licensed thus in order for Sanlam to accept their products from 1 June 2009.

This of course applies to all product providers, not only Sanlam.

The new Fit and Proper requirements prohibits a product house from accepting business from an entity not licensed to sell specific products. The onus is now on the insurer to check the validity of business submitted to it by intermediaries.

The addition of this license category will entail a profile change which takes about two moths to reflect after successful application. This means that you have between now and the end of March to apply to leave sufficient time for this to be officially added to your license, and for you to provide proof to the insurer.