Overview of the legislative protection of retirement benefits against transfer, reduction, hypothecation and attachment in South Africa

This article demonstrates that the retirement industry is fragmented, with different pieces of legislation which contain differently drafted provisions addressing the same issue. In particular, it illustrates that several pension statutes provide protection against creditors to retirement benefits held by retirement funds. Further, that, while held in retirement funds, retirement benefits are protected from assignment, transfer, cession, hypothecation, pledge, reduction, attachment and execution. Furthermore, that some of these transactions appear in some of the provisions of the pension Statutes whereas they do not do so in similar provisions of other pension statutes. This article argues that the differences in the way similar provisions in different pension statutes are drafted leads to the development of confusing jurisprudence regarding the protection of members' retirement benefits, which needs legislative intervention. This article calls for a uniform approach across all pension statutes regarding the protection of pension benefits against members' creditors. This article further examines whether retirement benefits can be declared realisable property to enable creditors to enforce payment of their debts from these benefits. It illustrates that while it is clear that legislative protection of retirement benefits is available before these benefits accrue to members, there is, however, controversy whether this protection remains intact when these benefits have accrued to members.

Regulating South Africa’s retirement funds: The case for clearer objectives

The rationale for the regulation of participants in financial markets, like retirement funds, is sound. It would be strengthened, however, by a clear statement of the objectives of such regulation. In this article the position is taken that the objectives underpinning the regulation of South African privately-managed retirement funds should be enhanced. It presents this argument with reference to international principles concerning systems of old-age provision, and to the examples of regulations in other jurisdictions. It recommends a set of practical regulatory objectives in the pursuit of efficiency, sustainability, coverage, adequacy and security of provision for old age.

How the Milk Tea Alliance Inspired Singapore, and Why We Need to Let Youths Take the Lead

I am a Singaporean activist currently living in Taiwan. In 2014, I was sued by the Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong over a blog post I wrote revealing how the Singapore government was investing the retirement funds of Singaporeans without being completely transparent to them. I was fired from my job on this pretext, and was later charged by the government for protesting over the same advocacy issue. In 2016, after supporting an opposition politician during a by-election, the police searched my home and took away my laptops and storage devices.

Strategies in Retirement Fund Selection in the Mexican Retirement Market 1997-2018

Objective: This research studies individual investment strategies that can be employed by Mexican workers to choose a retirement savings company, to provide evidence that can guide workers and governments in their pursuit for a higher replacement rate. Methods: To accomplish such task, more than 200,000 individual decisions in rolling-windows are simulated, based on more than twenty-years of market prices on retirement funds in Mexico (1997-2018). Outcome: Results indicate that contrarian-based strategies dominate momentum-based strategies in three out of four categories of funds. Recommendations: Moreover, in two out of four categories of funds the highest return is reached by the system’s average, calling for the introduction of an ETF-type of product to the Mexican financial market. Originality: The novelty of this research resides in the perspective of the analysis, positioning the Mexican worker in the role of an investor making a financial choice. Conclusions: The maximum average return is the best way to select a retirement fund manager when there is a guaranteed minimum pension, which acts as a risk-hedge, as it is in the Mexican case.

EFFECT OF COVID 19 ON THE PERFORMANCE OF TOURISM INDUSTRY.A CRITICAL LITERATURE REVIEW

Purpose: Among all segments in the economy, tourism is one of the main sectors which impact the economy as many governments impose travel restrictions, travel bans, shutting down airports, and mass passenger cancellations The pandemic has forced people to use their retirement funds early as they needed to make a living. The general objective of the study was to examine effect of Covid 19 on the performance of tourism industry. Methodology: The paper used a desk study review methodology where relevant empirical literature was reviewed to identify main themes and to extract knowledge gaps. Findings: The study concluded that the Coronavirus puts a furrow on the tourism industry. Many domestic and international Airlines Companies are forced to cancel their flights from and to other countries due to insufficient tourist as the people are becoming panicked for the spread of this harmful virus. Revenues from the tourist industries has got a bit lowered as no individuals are traveling to visit tourist destinations as all flights are being canceled . It has also showcased the ultimate harm it created on the economy of the country and the globe at the same time. It is being thought that the impact will continue for some more time and that is of much more concern in recent time Recommendations: The study recommends that tourism industry stakeholders should be ready for post-corona environment. There are different scenarios on when the industry will recover, what new challenges and standards will be imposed, who are more likely to travel which products and services will disappear and transform. Hence the stakeholders should be able to create different action plans for each scenario to be put into action after recovery. Destination image shall also be re-positioned based on safety, health and cleanliness. All stakeholders should also make sure they have a risk and crises management plan and a strong financial structure to improve their resilience in the future.

Savings for retirement and the millennial generation in Mexico: perception about the importance of having a retirement fund

The aim of this study focused on knowing the existing relation between Savings, Financial Capability, Future forecast and Retirement funds in relation to gender, which allows to determine the Savings culture, while also proving if there is a relationship between Savings, Financial Capability, Future forecast and Retirement funds in relation to gender among the population known as Millennial generation. The study is non-experimental, approached from the hypothetic-deductive paradigm, it is descriptive and correlational, as well as transversally cut. The participants were 89 Millennials(73% women and 27% men), whoseagesranged between 18 to 35 years old. The sample was non-probabilistic by auto-determination, since the technique used was “snowball sampling”, which consisted on sharing the instrument through social networks. For the study, the survey designed by the Mexican National Commission of Retirement Savings System (2017) was used. For the data capture and analysis, the program SPSS Statistics v23 was used and the measurement technique was Pearson s Chi square with df and sig <0.05. The main results show how young millennials have not thought about retirement or at least, they are currently not taking action on this issue, hence, they have not decided to save money for the future at the moment.Regarding the parametricresults, it was determined that thereis no relationship between what millennials perceive about keeping a record of monthly income and expenses, what they would do in case they received an unexpected sum of money, receive a monthly pension, the retirement age, amount of the retirement pension and the knowledge of what a retirement fund is with the variable gender.

PERFECT SUSPENSION OF WORK: ALTERNATIVE OR ABUSE OF SOCIAL BENEFITS IN TIMES OF PANDEMIC

The purpose of the research was to determine the impact of the Perfect Suspension Of Work (SPL) on the social benefits of workers during the state of sanitary emergency 2020. The methodology is: applied, non-experimental design, quantitative approach and cross-sectional through the technique of documentary analysis and the data registration form, the study considered the information reported by the Ministry of Labor and Employment Promotion, and reports and publications of regulations applied and enacted during the state of sanitary emergency. The results showed that 298,677 workers were included in the SPL, where 98.12% belong to the private sector, 48.51% to companies with more than 100 workers, 26.05% receive remuneration between S/1000.00 and S/1500. 00 soles, the most affected activity is the real estate activity with 15.85% and the employers have a debt of more than 27 million soles with the AFP, where 80.67% are in judicial collection and the granting of social benefits were computed by days actually worked. In conclusion, the SPL has had a negative impact on social benefit payments and workers retirement funds.

The Need to Adopt Preventative Measures to Combat the Misappropriation of Retirement Fund Assets

This paper discusses the challenge of the misappropriation of retirement fund assets by trustees, fund asset managers and retirement funds’ administrators. It demonstrates that retirement fund members lose substantial retirement benefits due to the illegal and unlawful conduct of those who manage and administer retirement funds. It evaluates whether the South African legislative framework offers retirement funds and their members adequate protection from activities that may compromise the delivery of the pension promise such as: mismanagement; fraudulent activities; gross negligence; and the outright looting of retirement fund assets. In particular, this paper illustrates that the law in South Africa does not deter would-be wrongdoers from acting in a manner that may compromise the benefits expected by retirement fund members when they exit their funds. It advocates the adoption of adequate preventative legislative measures that would make it difficult for anyone to act in a manner that would compromise retirement fund members' benefits in South Africa.

Financial Risk Tolerance: The Case of Older Chinese in Klang Valley, Malaysia 2020

Ageing demographic profiles pose challenges to the nation as policymakers are concerned about the health, public pension and the financial management of the society. In Malaysia, retirees are mostly dependent on savings from the Employees Provident Fund (EPF), a government agency that manages savings and retirement plans for private-sector employees and non-pensionable public servants. Many Malaysians aged past the targeted retirement age of 60 years old chose to remain in the workforce, mainly due to insufficient retirement funds or has depleted their retirement funds in a short period. To ensure sufficient funds to attain an ideal retirement life, Malaysians resort to invest or seek business opportunities. Thus, this paper studies the impact of demographic characteristics (sex, age, and educational level) and finance characteristics (financial knowledge and financial satisfaction) on the risk tolerance among older Malaysian Chinese in the year 2020. The results of this study showed that the older Malaysian Chinese risk tolerance is highly influenced by sex, age, education level, financial knowledge and financial satisfaction.