Discovery CEB reports that on 21 July, the President signed the Pension Funds Amendment Bill into law, which followed his signing of the Revenue Laws Amendment Bill on 1 June.

Thus, all prerequisites have successfully been concluded for SA’s new two-pot retirement system to take effect. “In five weeks’ time, members of South African retirement funds will be able to access a portion of their retirement savings before they retire,” Guy Chennells of Discovery Corporate and Employee Benefits indicated. But, Chennells warned that “funds that have not submitted their rules amendments by 31 July can’t be certain that their withdrawal rules will be registered and approved by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) before 1 September”. According to a FSCA communication issued on 19 July, only 30% of anticipated submissions (rule amendments) were received before the initial deadline of 15 July. The authority is still waiting for more than 350 retirement funds to submit their respective rule amendments, so it extended the deadline to 31 July. Rules submitted after the 31 July extension date will not be prioritised, will be subject to normal FSCA service level agreements, and may not be registered by September. Rule amendments remain invalid unless registered and approved by the regulator, and funds/administrators may not act on unapproved rules. Further, the funds/administrators will have to take responsibility for any consequences resulting from non-compliance with these legislative changes.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard at Moneyweb

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