Welcome to the South African Retirement Annuity Fund (SARAF) website. We aim to provide you, our valued member, with an interactive portal to access information about your annuity, administration thereof, and the general governance of the Fund.
Main objective of the Fund
The Fund aims to enable members to make provision for their retirement in a tax efficient manner. Some members use this as their only source of retirement provision, whilst others use it to supplement existing retirement provision. The Fund additionally provides death benefits to dependants should a member pass away prior to retirement.
Fund History and Background
SARAF, the largest and one of the oldest retirement annuity funds in South Africa was established in 1961. In alignment with the development of more sophisticated products over the last number of years, SARAF offers a wide spectrum of product offerings made available by Old Mutual. The fund was registered in 1961 by Old Mutual Life Assurance Company Ltd (South Africa) (“OMLACSA”) with the purpose to create a platform to market certain of its long term individual life insurance products to its clients.
The fund is registered with the Financial Services Board (the regulator) and the South African Revenue Services, as required by legislation and operates as a separate legal entity, managed by a board of trustees.
Some interesting facts
- The fund has in excess of 1 200 000 members!
- It is the largest retirement annuity fund in South Africa.
- The total assets are in excess of R73,6 billion!! (as at 31 December 2009)
The fund’s registered office and the office from which it operates is based in Pinelands, Cape Town.
Recent developments
The Fund was recently converted to a self-administered fund. This enables the Fund to offer an even more flexible choice of investments to members. The Fund has opened its own bank account and fund governances have been improved to ensure that the interest of the members is protected.