Complete independence
from product and service providers
Our technical services can be utilised for any employee benefits arrangement or part thereof.
Complete independence
from product and service providers
Our technical services can be utilised for any employee benefits arrangement or part thereof.
Enigma Services
Our services are designed to:
- Reduce employer and employee risk to escalating costs, poor administration and claims disputes.
- Ensure transparency and proper communication.
- Eliminate costs associated with non-compliance.
- Provide appropriate benefit and investment structures.
- Access latest technological developments.
How do we achieve this?
For retirement funds our holistic consulting approach aims to satisfy the various stakeholders by defining the administration platform with support. This support combines good governance advice, legal and compliance solutions, secretarial and technical services as well as monitoring performance against benchmarks, into a seamless administration delivery.
View our unique model on interaction between administration and consulting:
All these services can be individually contracted on a project or full-time basis.
Administration
Stakeholder Needs
issues/problems
Consulting
- Scheme setup instructions
- Member update
- Income allocation
- Financial accounting
- Reporting
- Benefit payments
- Risk benefits admin
Co-ordinating
Services
Enigma provides stakeholders with ongoing co-ordination of service deliveries, liaison with authorities and monitors satisfaction against benchmarks.
Advisory services
Benefit structuring Policies & Procedures
Technical services
Secretarial services
Legal services
Advisory services
Our approach to advisory services seeks to ensure that, through collaboration with all the stakeholders, employee benefits are designed and managed in the most appropriate way. We will ensure that such benefits are administered and managed cost-effectively in terms of good retirement fund practice.
General retirement fund consulting
- Benefit Design and implementation.
- Review of existing benefit structure.
- Advice and implementation of fund policies and procedures.
- Tendering specifications and assistance with the selection of service providers.
- Advice on the implications of mergers and acquisitions on benefit arrangements.
- Change from Defined Benefit to Defined Contribution.
- Managing the change of service providers to the fund.
- Benchrmarking of services on an industry basis.
- Monitoring of and feedback in respect of developments in the employee benefits environment.
- Guidance to stakeholders in respect of all aspects related to good governance.
- Distribution of death benefits (Sec 37C of the Pension Funds Act).
- Trustee Election Process.
- Trustee Training.
- Rate and benefit reviews.
- Packaging products where required.
Risk benefit consulting
- Audit of current benefits
- Review of benefit structure – HR strategy, Cost management strategy.
- Scheme structuring – Fully insured, profit sharing, partial self-insurance, cell captive.
- Assessment and placement of risk.
- Management of claims disputes.
- Management of absenteeism.
Co-ordinating services
Account Management in itself has become a specialist discipline due to the ever-increasing burden of the regulatory environment, coupled with the increasing tendency of members to hold fund officers accountable. This in effect represents the “executive arm” of the Trustees.
Our approach to ensuring the smooth operation of the fund will be to develop a Strategic Account Management Plan in collaboration with the Trustees. This plan will create the framework within which the Team will operate to ensure implementation of Trustee decisions and to co-ordinate deliveries from all service providers.
An integral part of this service is to make extensive use or project management disciplines in co-ordinating outputs from the various service providers, thereby ensuring that the outcomes are managed into a seamless delivery.
General retirement fund consulting
- Negotiating service level agreements of service providers.
- Monitoring service levels of service providers.
- Claims management and tracking.
- Handling fund level queries.
Secretarial services
General retirement fund consulting
- Meetings to be convened, dates, flights and accommodation arranged.
- Prepare the agenda of all meetings and arrange distribution.
- Manage the minute book.
Recording of minutes & ensuring that actions are implemend. - Facilitate action items arising from trustee meetings.
- Maintaining a record of decisions taken at trustee meetings.
- Maintenance and management of a complaints register.
Assist with the drafting of an annual budget for Trustee expenses. - Arrange attendance of relevant seminars, workshops and conferences for designated Trustees.
- Trustee pack for new Trustees.
Actuarial services
Standard services for a defined contribution fund includes the following:
- Verifying the data for the assessment of financial soundness.
- Issuing the required triennial financial soundness certificates.
- Availability to answer any queries and discussing matters related to the bonus declaration.
Other specialist actuarial consulting services include:
- Developrrent of AIDS risk strategies.
- Assessment of pensioner risks.
Health care funding for retired staff. - Self-insurance or partial self-insurance of risk benefits.
Risk management
- Development of a Risk Management Policy.
- Advice on the advantages and disadvantages of self-insurance and other alternative risk management strategies.
- Disability management services.
- Claims management services.
- Claims dispute management services.
- Risk re-broking services.
Communication consulting
Our specific services include:
- Audit current channels.
- Development and implementation of a communication policy.
- Staff induction material.
- Membership booklets.
- Newsletters.
- Financial reports.
- Displays.
- Group discussions.
Legal
To support the requirement for compliance with all relevant legislation and to promote good fund governance. Enigma Solutions provides the following legal services:
- Independent Principal Officer service.
- Supporting services for Principal Officers.
- Manage statutory duties and reports.
- Rule consolidation, amendments and review.
Annual compliance audit. - Maintaining a fund register.
Drafting of Fund practice notes (precedence, delegation of authority, etc.) - Maintaining a policies and procedures file.
- Liaison with the Financial
- Services Board and the South
- African Revenue Service where necessary.
- Managing of reporting to Trustees by service providers, in particular by administrators.
- Establishment and maintenance of a separately indexed decisions register.
- Establishment and maintenance of a policies and procedures file.
- Management of a diary respect of all statutorily required reports to be submitted to the authorities.
Investment consulting services
To address the complex and changing investment environment, our investment consulting service provides comprehensive navigational aids to stakeholders, to assist them in addressing their financial and investment responsibilities.
Asset and liability matching
We will conduct an asset and liability modeling exercise. This will be the basis of the process to determine an appropriate investment policy. This ensures that the investment strategy takes into account the funds current and future liability profile.
Investment policy
We will review the current investment policy and assist Trustees to re-define manager mandates, performance benchmarks and monitoring criteria.
We will ensure that the policy document clearly specifies the investment ob1ectives of the fund including “how” and “against which benchmarks” performance will be measured Draft Mandates.
The policy document should also provide guidelines and parameters from which asset managers receive their mandates within which they are expected to perform.
Investment process
Performance monitoring
We continuously monitor the performance of fund investments and can provide reports regarding the different bases. Asset managers and insurers provide us with their investment returns for different investment periods to be analysed and provide feedback to Trustees.
We will make use of various investment surveys and compare them. These comparisons serve as the basis for a bi-annual presentation to Trustees, enabling them to compare the performances of their own investments relative to the market.
Asset manager selection
Where necessary, we will provide assistance regarding the possible selection, change of investment managers and the moving of funds between portfolios. The implications of these changes will be discussed in depth with Trustees to enable them to make an informed final decision.
