Advisors Asset Managers
What Advisors and Asset Managers Need to Know in 2025
Advisors and asset managers operating in African and emerging markets face a specific set of pressures: tightening regulation, client demand for transparent fee structures, and the operational complexity of managing multi-asset portfolios across jurisdictions. Meeting those pressures requires clear processes, the right technology infrastructure, and a disciplined approach to every stage of the client relationship — from onboarding through to retirement distribution.
This guide covers the core responsibilities of advisors and asset managers, the investment options requirements they must satisfy, how retirement planning fits into a broader wealth strategy, and where platforms such as Veri-Global add measurable value.
The Distinct Roles of Advisors and Asset Managers
An independent financial adviser (IFA) provides personalised financial guidance to individual or institutional clients. Their mandate typically covers budgeting, insurance, tax advice, and long-term planning, including retirement.
An asset manager constructs and administers investment portfolios on behalf of clients — retail, institutional, or both. They make allocation decisions across equities, fixed income, alternatives, and cash, subject to mandates agreed with clients or trustees.
In practice, the two roles increasingly overlap. Boutique wealth firms often perform both functions, and the regulatory frameworks in markets such as South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya now require both types of firm to demonstrate suitability, disclosure, and ongoing review obligations.
Investment Options Requirements: What Regulators Expect
Meeting investment options requirements is not a one-time compliance exercise. Regulators across sub-Saharan Africa require advisors and asset managers to:
- Document the range of investment options presented to each client
- Demonstrate that recommendations are appropriate to the client's risk profile, time horizon, and financial circumstances
- Disclose all costs, including platform fees, management fees, and any adviser charges
- Review suitability at defined intervals — typically annually or following a material change in the client's circumstances
Failure to satisfy these requirements exposes firms to regulatory sanction and reputational damage. Asset managers running pooled vehicles face an additional layer: they must ensure the fund's stated investment objectives remain consistent with the options being offered to underlying investors.
The Retirement Planning Process: A Structured Approach
Retirement planning is one of the most consequential services an adviser delivers. The retirement planning process follows a logical sequence:
1. Establish the Client's Retirement Goal
Quantify the income the client needs in retirement, adjusted for inflation and expected longevity. In high-inflation emerging market environments, this calculation demands particular care.
2. Assess Current Assets and Savings Rate
Map existing pension contributions, savings accounts, and investable assets against the target. Identify the gap.
3. Select Appropriate Vehicles
Retirement annuities, preservation funds, living annuities, and tax-advantaged savings accounts each serve different purposes. The adviser must match the vehicle to the client's liquidity needs, tax position, and risk tolerance.
4. Construct and Monitor the Portfolio
Asset managers build the underlying portfolio. Regular reconciliation — ideally automated — ensures the portfolio remains within mandate and that performance is reported accurately.
5. Manage the Decumulation Phase
Drawdown strategy in retirement requires as much attention as accumulation. Sequence-of-returns risk, minimum drawdown rules, and estate planning considerations all apply.
Retirement Planning Examples
- Example A: A 45-year-old professional with a moderate risk profile and a 20-year horizon may hold 60% growth assets and 40% income assets, rebalancing annually.
- Example B: A 58-year-old approaching retirement with a defined income target may shift progressively into capital-protected instruments and a living annuity structure three years before retirement date.
- Example C: An institutional trustee managing a defined contribution fund for 2,000 members requires consolidated reporting across multiple underlying managers — a task that demands a reliable data layer rather than manual aggregation.
Best Savings Account Benefits for Clients
Not every client requires a complex portfolio. For clients building an emergency fund or saving toward a medium-term goal, the best savings account benefits include:
- Liquidity: Access to funds without penalty
- Capital preservation: No exposure to market volatility
- Competitive interest rates: Particularly relevant in high-rate environments
- Tax efficiency: In markets where interest income enjoys an annual exemption, advisers should ensure clients use the full allowance before moving to taxable investment accounts
Advisers who treat savings accounts as a foundation — rather than an afterthought — build more resilient client financial plans.
Wealth Management vs Alternatives: Choosing the Right Structure
The wealth management vs alternatives debate is relevant for both high-net-worth individuals and institutional investors. Traditional wealth management — discretionary portfolios of listed equities and bonds — offers liquidity, regulatory oversight, and transparent pricing. Alternative investments — private equity, hedge funds, infrastructure debt, and real assets — offer diversification and potentially higher returns, but at the cost of liquidity and complexity.
For advisers and asset managers in African markets, the practical considerations include:
- Regulatory eligibility: Not all alternative structures are available to retail clients under local law
- Minimum investment thresholds: Many alternative funds require commitments that exclude smaller portfolios
- Operational due diligence: Valuing illiquid assets requires independent verification; advisers must satisfy themselves that the asset manager's valuation methodology is sound
- Client suitability: Alternatives are appropriate only where the client has sufficient liquidity elsewhere and a genuine long-term horizon
The answer is rarely binary. A portfolio that allocates 10–20% to alternatives while maintaining a liquid core is a common structure for sophisticated clients.
Tax Advice: What Advisers Can and Cannot Do
Tax advice sits at the intersection of financial planning and legal compliance. In most jurisdictions, advisers are permitted to explain the tax implications of investment decisions — for example, the tax treatment of retirement fund withdrawals or the capital gains implications of rebalancing a portfolio. They are not, however, authorised to provide legal tax opinions or represent clients before a revenue authority.
Best practice is to maintain a working relationship with a qualified tax practitioner and refer clients when the complexity warrants it. For asset managers, tax reporting obligations — particularly around withholding tax on dividends and interest across multiple jurisdictions — require automated data capture rather than manual reconciliation.
Wealth Management Pricing: What Clients Should Expect
Transparency in wealth management pricing is both a regulatory requirement and a competitive differentiator. The standard fee structures are:
- Assets under management (AUM) fee: A percentage of the portfolio value, typically ranging from 0.5% to 1.5% per annum depending on portfolio size and service level
- Fixed retainer: A flat annual fee for advisory services, independent of portfolio size
- Hourly or project fee: Charged for specific engagements such as retirement planning reviews or estate restructuring
- Performance fee: Applied in some discretionary mandates, usually subject to a high-water mark
Advisers must disclose all fees in a format the client can understand before any engagement begins. Platforms that automate fee calculation and reporting reduce the administrative burden and the risk of disclosure errors.
How Veri-Global Supports Advisors and Asset Managers
Veri-Global is a data and administration platform built for the operational realities of African and emerging market investment firms. For advisors and asset managers, the platform addresses three practical problems:
1. Consolidated portfolio data: Rather than reconciling data from multiple custodians and fund administrators manually, advisers access a single reconciled view of client holdings. This supports accurate suitability reviews and performance reporting.
2. Regulatory reporting: Veri-Global's reporting layer is structured to align with local regulatory disclosure requirements, reducing the time advisers spend preparing compliance documentation.
3. Fee administration: The platform calculates and records fees across multiple fee structures and client segments, producing the audit trail that regulators and clients both require.
For asset managers running multi-class mandates — including alternatives alongside listed assets — Veri-Global provides the data infrastructure that makes accurate valuation and reporting tractable at scale.
Key Takeaways for Advisors and Asset Managers
- Investment options requirements demand documented suitability, full cost disclosure, and periodic review — not a one-time exercise.
- The retirement planning process has five distinct stages; each requires a different skill set and, increasingly, different technology.
- Savings accounts, wealth management structures, and alternatives each serve a purpose; the adviser's role is to select the right combination for each client.
- Tax advice has defined boundaries; advisers should work within them and refer complex matters to qualified practitioners.
- Wealth management pricing must be transparent, disclosed in advance, and easy for clients to verify.
- Veri-Global provides the data infrastructure that makes these obligations manageable without adding administrative overhead.