It was with much interest we read a recent report that suggested the South African government, for the sake of simplicity, wanted to reduce retirement products to only one. In practical terms, our initial feeling is, this can only result in disaster. Cur
If one is looking to invent a new retirement planning system that embraces everyone ( one that will actually be practical and work) it will require an “out of the box” thought process, because it would appear that all such avenues over many hundreds of years of pension fund history have already been explored. We need to imagine what the retirement funding industry will look like in one hundred (even five hundred) years in the future. If any new system is to work it will require the cooperation of government and private enterprise and a huge dose of creative ingenuity (from anywhere!).
As a start perhaps government and private enterprise could liaise and sponsor a huge cash prize, possibly in excess of R1m (tax free!) for the winning idea. By way of consolation for the sponsors, the prize money could be offered as an initial contribution into the new fund with the winner being made the first member.
We will save further ideas until someone offers the prize money!