The Africa 53 Pension Fund   and Octagon Umbrella Pension Trust Fund were designed for small to medium-sized organizations that have a need to enroll members in a retirement benefits scheme without having to set up a standalone scheme that requires a lot of regulatory compliance requirements at the same time saving on costs for setting up such a scheme. The Funds have different fee structures and Investment Managers, giving employers a choice.

The Multi-Employer Funds gives these organizations an opportunity to pool together into one scheme, with each organization having a flexibility to design their scheme specific rules like any occupational scheme while having shared service providers and governed by one Trust Deed. This arrangement presents the following benefits to such organizations.

• Reduced costs to the respective scheme as all services of the fund manager, Trustees, administrator, and auditor are co-shared in the pool
• Improved returns to the scheme given that the funds are pooled hence enjoy the economies of scale that comes with diversification of large portfolios.
• Reduced burden on the employer as the scheme will be managed by a corporate trustee and will concentrate on their core business, while the employees will benefit from interest received on the investments.
• Small to medium sized organizations that cannot set up a stand-alone retirement scheme come together to pool their funds under one scheme (the umbrella) for investment purposes
• Each fund is held in a separate account but invested as one fund.
• Guided option to set up a segregated fund through the assistance of Octagon once the scheme grows to accommodate stand-alone costs.
• The compliance management of the scheme which is highly regulated by the Pension Scheme Regulations Act will be left to the Trustees and Administrator, hence the employer will rest easy.
• No set up fee and the costs are dearly identified
• No requirement for appointment of trustees and service providers.
• No administrative involvement for employers
• Members can start contributing immediately
• The Scheme will be credited with full investment income as earned
• Transfer to another scheme attracts no penalties
• Individual scheme members log in to a portal on our website with a unique password and view their member statements, contributions history and benefits computations at withdrawal.

The employer through the HR and the Board of Trustees will be issued with a unique log in to a portal to be able to view and check the status of monthly contributions credited to individual member balances.