I have been a huge fan of Fundisa, having written about it often and having encouraged many of my clients to invest in it…however, after initially being a huge fan of the product, I have done some more work on it and as I see it, the big hurdle that Fundisa has is the underlying fund and its potential returns over a 15 year period…so much so, that I am questioning whether or not I can continue to support it. Here is my ...

I need to get this off my chest (again)…been fighting with 3 of the bigger insurance companies re the level of disclosure on their products with respect to fees and more specifically the performance on their portfolios… Suffice to say it is a futile exercise – it appears that even in this highly regulated environment that they can get away with complete nonsense when it comes to answering questions put to them . There is...

Following on from the first post on RSA Retail Bonds, I received a reply from the communications manager at National Treasury who referred me to 2 more people and I finally received a 10 page summary on the bonds. The first section is titled “How to invest” and answers the questions we had but is unfortunately not available on the website (yet)! Turns out though, that if you want to invest via the website you need to...

Much was made about the RSA Retail Bond when it was launched and about how it would provide a safe and cheap investment with a reasonable returns to the “man-in-the-street”. Well, I have been trying to buy some of these for a “man-in-the-street” using the RSA Retail Bond website – what a nightmare. There is an application form online but no details where to submit it or how to pay the funds into an account. So...

Consider the following – what would you advise the client? Client A took out an insurance based RA in 2003 (23 year term). She started a debit order of R450 pm (escalating at 10% pa). The current fund value is R63500 The company claims a return of 11.8% pa on the funds but the maths shows that she has had about 6% per annum. She now wants to move the RA to a unit trust RA (where there is no contractual obligation and no initial...

The Dilbert cartoonist, Scott Adams, earned a MBA from Berkeley, worked at a bank (got held up twice at gunpoint), and is worth millions. So we presume he knows a thing or two about money. In an interview with the Akron Beacon Journal, Adams says he read about a dozen personal finance books and began working on one himself. However, he found it all boiled down to these nine points and he “couldn’t figure out how to fluff...