Consultants Worldwide
What Consultants Worldwide Means for Today's Investor
Consultants Worldwide refers to the global network of independent financial advisers, fund administrators, and wealth management specialists who serve clients across multiple jurisdictions — including Africa's rapidly developing capital markets. For investment professionals and their clients, working with internationally experienced consultants means access to structured retirement planning processes, diversified investment options, and tax advice calibrated to cross-border realities. This article sets out what those services look like in practice, how wealth management compares to alternative approaches, and what to expect on pricing.
Understanding Investment Options Requirements
Before any portfolio is constructed, consultants must establish what a client's investment options requirements actually are. This is not a formality. Regulatory frameworks across African markets — from South Africa's FAIS Act to Kenya's Capital Markets Authority guidelines — require that advisers document suitability assessments before recommending any product.
A compliant suitability assessment typically covers:
- Risk tolerance: Quantified through standardised questionnaires, not informal conversation.
- Investment horizon: Retirement planning timelines differ materially from liquidity-driven savings goals.
- Regulatory status: Whether the client is a retail investor, professional investor, or institutional counterparty determines which products may be offered.
- Currency and jurisdiction exposure: Particularly relevant for clients with assets or liabilities in multiple African markets.
Consultants operating across borders must reconcile these requirements simultaneously — a task that demands both local regulatory knowledge and centralised data management.
The Retirement Planning Process: A Structured Approach
The retirement planning process is not a single event. It is an ongoing cycle of assessment, projection, product selection, and review. Consultants Worldwide practitioners typically follow a six-stage framework:
- Goal setting: Define the income required in retirement, adjusted for inflation and expected longevity.
- Gap analysis: Compare projected retirement income from existing assets against the defined goal.
- Product selection: Choose vehicles — pension funds, retirement annuities, provident funds, or offshore structures — that close the identified gap within the client's risk parameters.
- Tax efficiency review: Structure contributions and drawdowns to minimise tax drag over the accumulation and decumulation phases.
- Ongoing monitoring: Review asset allocation annually or following material life events.
- Transition planning: Manage the shift from accumulation to drawdown without triggering unnecessary tax events or liquidity constraints.
Retirement Planning Examples in African Markets
Consider two illustrative cases:
Example A — South African professional, age 42: A salaried professional with a company pension fund and a discretionary savings portfolio. The retirement planning process here focuses on maximising tax-deductible contributions to the pension fund (up to 27.5% of taxable income under current SARS rules), while holding growth assets in a tax-free savings account to reduce future capital gains exposure.
Example B — Kenyan entrepreneur, age 38: A business owner without an employer-sponsored pension. The adviser must construct a personal retirement plan using individual pension products registered with the Retirement Benefits Authority, while also considering offshore diversification given the client's USD-denominated revenue streams.
These retirement planning examples illustrate why a one-size approach fails. Jurisdiction, employment structure, and currency exposure each materially alter the optimal strategy.
Best Savings Account Benefits: Where Cash Fits in a Retirement Plan
Cash savings are often underestimated in retirement planning conversations. The best savings account benefits are not primarily about return — they are about liquidity, capital preservation, and regulatory protection.
For clients in African markets, the key attributes to evaluate in a savings account include:
- Deposit insurance coverage: South Africa's proposed deposit insurance scheme under the Financial Sector Laws Amendment Act is a relevant development; Kenya's Kenya Deposit Insurance Corporation already provides coverage up to KES 500,000.
- Real interest rate: The nominal rate minus inflation. In high-inflation environments, cash savings erode purchasing power rapidly.
- Accessibility terms: Notice periods and early withdrawal penalties affect how effectively cash functions as an emergency reserve.
- Currency denomination: USD-denominated savings accounts may suit clients with cross-border obligations, though they introduce exchange rate risk against local spending needs.
Consultants Worldwide practitioners typically recommend holding three to six months of living expenses in accessible cash savings, with the remainder deployed into structured investment vehicles aligned to the retirement planning process.
Wealth Management vs Alternatives: Making an Informed Choice
Wealth management — in the traditional sense — involves a dedicated adviser or team managing a client's entire financial picture: investments, tax planning, estate planning, and insurance. The alternative approaches include:
- Robo-advisory platforms: Algorithm-driven portfolio construction at lower cost, but with limited capacity to address cross-border tax complexity or bespoke structuring needs.
- Direct investment: Clients managing their own portfolios via online brokerage accounts. Viable for financially literate investors with time to monitor markets, but without the regulatory compliance oversight that a licensed adviser provides.
- Discretionary fund managers (DFMs): Institutional-grade portfolio management, typically accessed through an adviser. The adviser retains the client relationship; the DFM executes investment decisions.
- Multi-family offices: Suitable for ultra-high-net-worth clients requiring consolidated reporting across complex asset structures, including private equity, real estate, and listed securities.
The wealth management vs alternatives decision is ultimately a function of complexity, cost tolerance, and regulatory requirement. Clients with cross-border assets, business interests, or pension fund trustees have needs that algorithm-driven tools are not currently structured to meet.
Tax Advice Best Practices for Cross-Border Investors
Tax advice is one of the most consequential services a consultant can provide — and one of the most frequently misunderstood. The tax advice best suited to cross-border investors in African markets is not generic; it is jurisdiction-specific, instrument-specific, and timing-sensitive.
Key principles that apply across most African jurisdictions:
- Tax residency determines primary liability: Where a client is tax-resident determines which country has first right to tax global income. Dual residency situations require careful treaty analysis.
- Withholding taxes on investment income: Dividends and interest paid across borders are typically subject to withholding tax. Double taxation agreements (DTAs) between countries can reduce the applicable rate.
- Capital gains treatment varies widely: South Africa taxes capital gains at an effective maximum rate of 18% for individuals; Kenya applies a 5% withholding tax on listed securities gains. Advisers must model these differences when comparing investment options.
- Pension fund withdrawals: Early withdrawal from registered pension funds typically triggers significant tax penalties. The retirement planning process must account for these costs when modelling decumulation scenarios.
Consultants Worldwide practitioners who integrate tax advice into the retirement planning process — rather than treating it as a separate engagement — consistently produce better after-tax outcomes for clients.
Wealth Management Pricing: What to Expect
Wealth management pricing in African markets has moved toward greater transparency in recent years, driven by regulatory pressure and client expectation. The principal fee structures are:
- Assets under management (AUM) fee: Typically 0.5% to 1.5% per annum, charged as a percentage of the portfolio value. This aligns the adviser's revenue with portfolio growth.
- Fixed annual retainer: A set fee for defined services, regardless of portfolio size. Suitable for clients with complex planning needs but relatively modest investable assets.
- Hourly or project-based fees: Common for discrete engagements such as retirement planning reviews, tax structuring advice, or estate planning.
- Hybrid models: A reduced AUM fee combined with a retainer for planning services. Increasingly common among consultants serving mid-market clients.
Clients should request a full fee disclosure document before engaging any consultant. This should itemise adviser fees, platform fees, underlying fund charges, and any performance fees. Total cost of investment — not just the adviser fee — determines the net return a client receives.
How Veri-Global Supports Consultants Worldwide
Veri-Global is a financial data and portfolio administration platform designed for investment professionals operating in African and emerging markets. For Consultants Worldwide practitioners, the platform addresses a specific operational challenge: maintaining reconciled, regulation-aligned portfolio data across multiple custodians, currencies, and jurisdictions.
Rather than managing data across disconnected spreadsheets and custodian portals, advisers using Veri-Global access a single consolidated view of client portfolios — with audit trails, compliance documentation, and reporting outputs built in. This matters in practice because regulatory examinations increasingly require advisers to demonstrate not just what advice was given, but what data that advice was based on.
For fund administrators and independent financial advisers serving clients across African markets, the ability to produce reconciled reports — whether for a retirement annuity portfolio or a multi-currency discretionary mandate — reduces operational risk and supports the quality of advice delivered to clients.