Africa-Press – Lesotho. One of the leading insurance and health care services companies in the country, Metropolitan Lesotho, yesterday injected variety element in products offered under pension Investment through a new Objective-Based Investment (OBI).
Giving his welcome remarks at the launch, Metropolitan Lesotho’s Managing Director Mr Nkau Matete said the introduction of OBI was a response to a long time cry from their clients over lack of variety of choice under pension investment, therefore resulting in a limited scope of choice.
With the ongoing reforms process in Lesotho, Matete said the company saw a need too to reform and introduce new things in their services to make it more conducive for their clients.
Speaking of OBI, business development manager Mr Seenyane Nthejane said with this new ‘philosophy’ they are moving away from product specific investment to one whereby clients choose based on their objective. He dubbed it “more client centric”.
Nthejane went on to add that OBI places the investor’s needs at the center of the investment process, allowing them to align client’s investment with their personal, long-term life goals – as opposed to measuring performance considering generalized needs.
According to Nthejane, they are adopting OBI from their South African based investment partner and sister company Momentum Investment as they both belong to MMI holdings in South Africa.
He said they have been using OBI for ten years now. At the launch was also a panel discussion whereby amongst the points of discussion was the issue of retirement landscape challenges in Lesotho. The panel was made of MMI holdings representatives alongside Metropolitan Lesotho staff members among others.
With regards to the challenges hitting the retirement landscape of Lesotho, Nthejane pointed out that youth unemployment is core in a sense that instead of enjoying their post retirement life which they invested and bargained for, retirees still have to take care of the needs of their children.
This is an extra expense from spending and investing in their education. He also said Lesotho is experiencing a sluggish economic growth as per inflation increase and flactuations in cost of living and salary increase.
