The Octagon Umbrella Retirement Benefits Scheme was 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 Octagon Umbrella gives these organizations an opportunity to pool together into one scheme, with each organization having a flexibility to design their Trust 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, custodian, trustees, administrator and auditor are co-shared in the poo
• 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 Retirement Benefits Act will be left to the Corporate Trustee hence the employer will rest easy.
  
  

BENEFITS                                                                                       

• 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
• The Fund is eligible to receive Tier 11 contributions from the existing and new employers in respect of their employees, upon obtaining approval from RBA (Retirement Benefits Authority).
• 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.
• There will also be a provision for the members to enquire about their balances with their mobile phones via SMS (USSD code).