At the 2013 Principal Officers Association (POA) Imbasa Yegolide Awards, held on Monday night in Johannesburg, RisCura Consulting was named Asset/Investment Consultant of the year.  The awards recognise retirement fund service providers that have provided exceptional service within the retirement fund industry in the past year, as nominated by their clients. The awards focus on:

• Leadership and exceeding customer expectations;
• Customer-focused values reflected in service standards;
• Evidence of exceptional retirement fund and beneficiary service delivery; and
• Evidence of an ability to overcome service delivery challenges.

“We are honoured to be recognised for our work with our clients. These include many of Africa’s largest retirement funds, and we take pride in the stewardship role we play in helping them achieve better retirement savings for their members,” says Prasheen Singh, head of RisCura Consulting. “Our experience, commitment to client objectives, global best practice and industry-leading technology, steeped in risk management, have enabled us to deliver the custom guidance and security our clients need.”

Who participates in the Awards?

According to the POA, their member Principal Officers as well as non-member Principal Officers are invited to nominate service providers in 24 categories whom they believe are worthy of an award. Only practising Principal Officers may submit nominations.

The aim of the Awards is to reflect the Principal Officer’s experience of the service standards of their fund’s service providers. The POA is not prescriptive as to how a Principal Officer should make his or her choice. Principal Officers are decision-makers in their own right and it is not obligatory for their choice to be ratified by their board of trustees.

One of the important goals of the Awards is to enable retirement funds to give effect to PF 130 – a directive issued by the Financial Services Board. PF 130 deals with good governance of retirement funds and contains a code of conduct. The code recommends that funds maintain healthy relationships with service providers, and this is an area where the Principal Officer of a retirement fund can play a key role of facilitation.

For further information on the Awards the POA has posted an explanatory document on their website, which can be found here.