Banks, pension funds targets of hard-hitting annual reports

He said members of retirement funds – retirement annuities and umbrella funds, in particular – should be concerned about the administration of their funds. Ngalwana cited a number of examples of the maladministration of funds, with the biggest issue coming before his office being the failure of trustees to ensure that retirement savings earn a good return, says a report in Personal Finance. Of the 1 680 complaint issues raised with the adjudicator\'s office in the 2004/5 year, 1 137 – or more than 67% – concerned poor benefits. He said: It is no wonder that most South Africans retire with inadequate retirement savings.’ Another issue related to poor investment returns is administration fees and other charges, both disclosed and undisclosed. Full Personal Finance report

SA’s banks were also the subject of watchdog ire – and according to a report in Business Times they will ignore the findings in the Ombudsman for Banking Services’ annual report at their peril. Ombudsman Neville Melville is quoted as saying that with each year that passes, it becomes clearer that banks aren’t doing nearly enough to educate their customers – and that the customers don’t try hard enough to understand what they are letting themselves in for. The Ombudsman logged 17 165 inquiries handled by telephone, correspondence or off the street – an increase of 20% over last year. And the decisions of his office led to the banks paying back R16.2m to customers. Melville says that banks should pay more attention to sorting things out and he has raised the main causes of complaint with the Banking Association, the industry’s representative body, in a bid to galvanise the banks into action. Full Business Times report