Editor's Thoughts.

The FSCA's fourth Regulatory Actions Report (find a copy in the article under Top Picks) shows just how much enforcement muscle it flexed this year, with penalties jumping from R119.8 million to a massive R2.8 billion across 76 persons and entities, largely thanks to the Banxso deepfake scandal and the Medbond fake-investment scheme. If you want to know whether to prioritise reading the report, I’ll contextualise the headline: R2.5 billion was under the FAIS Act, and R3 million was in terms of the Pension Funds Act.

But don’t brush the report aside too quickly, there’s way more than just numbers. Retirement fund contribution non-payment got real teeth: National Treasury now treats owed contributions as preferred creditors when withholding municipal funding, and the Auditor-General will flag non-payment as a "material irregularity" in municipal accounts. Also worth noting, a court ruling now lets the FSCA electronically serve foreign wrongdoers, closing a jurisdictional loophole that previously let offshore bad actors dodge accountability. Plus there’s some great learnings from legal matters and cases.

Also under Top Picks, is an outline of the practical steps retirement funds (of any size) can take flowing from the PRI’s Responsible Investment in South Africa report we published on our Publications Podium yesterday.

Now, I know you’re busy as, but these really are two reports that you can’t afford to ignore – whatever your role in the EBnet community is.

Especially if you’re a key decision maker. In today’s episode of Industry Insights on EBnet.Stream, we chat to Joelene Moodley (Independent PO) abour her article in this year’s Sanlam Benchmark survey. It links to one of our recent webinars on the topic of independence – which you can catch here.

And Izak Odendaal’s (Old Mutual) article might explain why it’s 6 7 on today’s petrol price.

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