BULLY SINGH •Chairman, Iscor Retirement Fund &Iscor Unclaimed ...

BULLY SINGH
•Chairman, Iscor Retirement Fund &Iscor
Unclaimed Benefits Preservation Pension Fund
•24 years’ knowledge & experience as Trustee

A Personal Experience
Moving deferred pensioners from the retirement
Moving deferred pensioners from the retirement
fund to an unclaimed benefits preservation
fund for the benefit of existing pensioners

Administration expenses were going up
Why?
– 40 000 Deferred Pensioners on the Iscor Retirement
Fund in January 2010
– Proving to be a massive burden on existing
pensioners in the same fund

65% of the administration costs were for the
Deferred Pensioners
– These 40 000 Deferred Pensioners were on the
books but were “not doing anything”
– State of affairs could not be allowed to continue and
had to be remedied

Steps that were taken:
– Approached the Actuary
– Asked for a breakdown of the age groups
– Asked for the detailed benefit entitlement of each
Deferred Pensioner
– A startling fact: the first 15 000 Deferred Pensioners
had benefits of less than R500 each

Steps that were taken:
– Examined all who were 65 and older with help of
the Actuary
– Found that they were due for a pension

– Having to get hold of 40 000 people
– Made use of 4 or 5 tracing agents
From Challenge to Windfall Opportunity
– The retirement fund was running its surplus
apportionment exercise at the same time
– Able to use the same results of the tracing agents
for the apportionment exercise
– Cost-effective use of tracing agents – using the same
results for two fund projects

– The FSB was involved from the start
– The FSB gave advice as well as assurance that the
Iscor Retirement Fund was on the right path
– Actuary, Investment Consultant and Administrator
also involved from the start
Success flowing from Stakeholder Involvement
– Rules for Preservation Fund drawn up and
registered within one month
– Approved by SARS within 2 days of FSB registration

Thank you