{"id":509492,"date":"2021-07-28T15:20:04","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T13:20:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=509492"},"modified":"2021-07-28T15:20:04","modified_gmt":"2021-07-28T13:20:04","slug":"mboweni-pushing-for-major-retirement-change-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/509492\/mboweni-pushing-for-major-retirement-change-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Mboweni pushing for major retirement change in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Finance minister Tito Mboweni wants a key regulatory change that will allow South Africans to access their retirement funds early.<\/p>\n<p>The finance minister said in a media briefing on Wednesday (28 July), that the change will be made with the proviso that workers use any funds in a responsible manner.<\/p>\n<p>He said that workers should be able to access a portion of their retirement funds during &#8216;difficult times&#8217; &#8211; whether it be for a bond repayment or to pay off debt.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A portion of their retirement funds, workers should be able to access, to finish off bond repayment whatever debt they are in &#8230; I\u00a0must warn that it must be used for purposes of relief\u00a0and making better their own situation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The matter &#8211; which seems to be stuck somewhere in the system &#8211; has to do with making allowance for workers to have access to a percentage of their retirement funds times of difficulty,&#8221; the minister said.<\/p>\n<p>However, Mboweni also cautioned that people must ensure that they use this facility for purposes of relief and improving their financial situation.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3-x3k1fg8T4\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This follows a similar proposal by the opposition Democratic Alliance through its Pensions Funds Amendment Bill.<\/p>\n<p>The bill, which has been shot down by Treasury, would allow retirement fund members to access a portion of their savings in cash before retiring as a guarantee for a loan.<\/p>\n<p>The DA has proposed that the law be amended to allow retirement fund members to access up to 75% of their savings as security for a bank loan, instead of the current circumstances where members can only use their savings as surety to obtain a home loan.<\/p>\n<p>Treasury did not give its support to the DA&#8217;s bill as it was concerned that members would wipe out their funds.<\/p>\n<p>It has not been made clear how Mboweni&#8217;s proposed change would differ from that proposed by the opposition party.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/509458\/south-africas-covid-grant-extension-will-cost-r27-billion\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">South Africa\u2019s Covid grant extension will cost R27 billion<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Finance minister Tito Mboweni wants a key regulatory change that will allow South Africans to access their retirement funds early.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":101676,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-509492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509492"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":509510,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509492\/revisions\/509510"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}