FSC to Complete Review of Trustee Applications by September 30

The Financial Services Commission (FSC) expects to complete its review of all properly completed applications for trustees of superannuation funds and retirement schemes by September 30. Executive Director of the FSC, Brian Wynter made this disclosure last week at a media luncheon hosted by the FSC at the Hilton Kingston Hotel to update journalists on the activities of the Commission.
Mr. Wynter further informed that the FSC has received 1,628 applications for registration of trustees and 749 of these were properly completed. Of these, the FSC has completed ‘fit and proper’ assessments for 316 trustees. He stressed that each trustee has to be registered by the FSC. “That really relates to assessing their fitness and whether they are fit and proper. They are not obliged to be experts; they are ordinary people who apply their ordinary knowledge and common sense and this is a tried and tested system that has worked very well for a long time in Jamaica, and in the U.K,” he added.
Meanwhile, of the 520 applications for registration submitted by superannuation funds and retirement schemes, only 45, or nine per cent of these were properly completed, mainly because most superannuation funds have not yet submitted updated constitutive documents such as Trust Deeds and Plan Rules, Mr. Wynter pointed out.
“What has clearly happened is that the resources available to the industry, for lawyers.to revise and reform all of these (documents), have had to be applied as they are available, and what we have found from our dialogue with the industry, is that there was great difficulty in achieving what was required in terms of those details,” he noted.
He said that the FSC’s review of the 45 plans “is progressing in a timely fashion, having regard to the technical nature and to the fundamental importance of getting it right.we don’t believe that there should be any reason for concern over the amount of time that it has taken so far,” Mr. Wynter said. “We will continue to work very closely with trustees, administrators, investment managers, and lawyers on questions and details of understanding, so that they can deliver documents that will be consistent with the Act and will make sense in respect to the interest of the pension plan members,” he added.