Editor's Thoughts.

Today’s episode of The Art of Manager Fusion, sponsored by Alexforbes, is a must watch. Over 90% of all retirement fund members are invested in a retirement fund’s default investment strategy. We might be tempted to congratulate ourselves that we’re giving great advice as consultants, or making great decisions as trustees, or (perhaps the most dangerous) that our retirement fund members trust us. But let’s be real with each other here, member apathy is the more likely answer. And I’d argue that most don’t understand what they’re invested in.

If you consider that investment defaults are baked in advice, designed to steer a retirement fund member through the best investment options to help them reach the end of their retirement fund savings journey with the best possible outcome, you begin to appreciate just how important this decision by proxy is.

And what happens before retirement impacts what happens after retirement. The article by Martiens Barnard (Momentum Investments) outlines the retiree’s reality, and the consequences of their decisions (or non-decisions).

Suzette von Broembsen (PSG Wealth) cautions against waiting until you know all the facts or alternatives before investing at all. (Sidebar: Women being timid is a conversation surfaced by Warren Wheatley in this week’s Women’s Day webinar – the recording is now available here.) Suzette shows the actual monetary impact of waiting.

So, bottom line, even when retirement fund members or individual clients (or even yourself) are not making decisions, they’re making decisions. Now that places a lot of responsibility (liability?) in the laps of decision makers and decision influencers. And with the two-pot system growing the amount of assets in the retirement sector, that responsibility is growing.

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