• HOME
  • LIBRARY
  • CLIENT
    PORTAL
  • UNCLAIMED
    BENEFITS
  • CONTACT

Diligent pension fund trustees should have been concerned whether they would be required to register with the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) in their capacity of trustee of a fund. In this regard consider section 1 (d) of Schedule 1 of FIA, which reads as follows:

“A person in his or her capacity as either a legal practitioner as defined in the Legal Practitioners Act, 1995 (Act No.15 of 1995) and who is in private practice, or an estate agent as defined in the Estate  Agents Act, 1976 (Act No. 112 of 1976), or an Accountant or Auditor, or in any other capacity, who accepts instructions from a client to prepare for or carry out a transaction for the client in respect of … (d) Creation, operation or management of legal persons or legal and commercial arrangements;”

Ostensibly this could mean that any person serving as trustee must register. However, rephrasing this quote to remove the ‘noise’ and to underscore our interpretation it reads like this:

“A person … who is in private practice… in any … capacity, who accepts instructions from a client to prepare for or carry out a transaction for the client in respect of … (d) … management of legal persons…”

The key phrases here are “…who is in private practice…, who accepts instructions from a client… to carry out a transaction…”

The appointment of a trustee to a board of trustees is not because the person is offering a service being in private practice, does not constitute an instruction by a client to serve on the board of trustees, the relevant fund does not constitute a client and serving on a pension fund board of trustees does not constitute a transaction.

We consequently conclude that pension fund trustees need not register unless their appointment to the relevant board of trustees was made in their capacity as legal practitioner, accountant, auditor, estate agent or any other person rendering trustee services in return for professional services to the fund.

Important notice and disclaimer
This article summarises the understanding, observation and notes of the author and lays no claim on accuracy, correctness or completeness. RFS Namibia (Pty) Ltd does not accept any liability for the content of this contribution and no decision should be taken on the basis of the information contained herein before having confirmed the detail with the relevant party. Any views expressed herein are those of the author and not necessarily those of RFS.

PENSION CALCULATOR
How much will you need when you retire and are you investing enough?
GALLERY
CLIENT COM(PLI)MENTS
FREE INVESTMENT AND PENSION FUND NEWS
Subscribe now to receive our monthly newsletter.
We use cookies to make this site simpler. By using this site, you permit the use of cookies.
More information Ok