Moonstone

Financial planning has always relied on patterns. Young clients are expected to seek growth. Mid-career professionals should be building wealth. Older investors are assumed to become increasingly cautious and less digitally engaged. Farzana Botha believes the pattern has broken. Or, as she put it, clients have executed a “behavioural U-turn”.

No two journeys into financial planning are the same. One of this year’s top Postgraduate Diploma in Financial Planning (PGDip) achievers returned to an industry she had left years earlier. Another balanced studying with the demands of a full-time career, discovering that consistency matters more than intensity. A third learnt that the real value of the programme lay not in earning another qualification, but in gaining a deeper understanding of the people behind the financial plans.

Financial services providers and compliance professionals have until 10am on 13 July to register for Moonstone Compliance’s annual Regulatory Update Webinar, which will bring together three hours of regulatory developments, FICA issues, and an in-depth look at the Conduct of Financial Institutions Bill.

A broker’s statement that she was retiring did not become dishonest merely because she intended to continue broking under another financial services provider, the Financial Services Tribunal has found. The Tribunal set aside her debarment, in a decision that draws a detailed distinction between genuine fit-and-proper misconduct and contractual, operational, or commercial grievances arising from a representative’s departure and subsequent competition.

More than one in four of South Africa’s municipalities have been targeted by National Treasury’s decision to begin temporarily withholding their July 2026 Local Government Equitable Share (LGES) transfers. The 69 affected municipalities collectively owe R27.4 billion to Eskom, water boards, the South African Revenue Service, retirement funds, and other creditors.

The Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) says it is now focused on engaging organised labour and implementing cost-containment measures already under way, rather than pursuing a further application to reduce the approved 2026 contribution increase, as it looks to moderate contribution increases over the coming years, beginning with the 2027 adjustment.

As the South African Revenue Service issues auto-assessments between 1 and 12 July, taxpayers who made two-pot withdrawals or earned extra income may find that a pre-populated return tells only part of their tax story. Those with retirement fund contributions carried forward from previous years may also need to check whether those amounts have been correctly recorded and applied.

A KwaZulu-Natal couple’s joint estate has been placed under final sequestration in another case arising from the Travel Ventures International (TVI) scheme, more than 15 years after the regulatory process against one of them began. The High Court in Pietermaritzburg confirmed the provisional sequestration of the joint estate of Valukufa Jane Nduli and her husband, Sibusiso Christopher Nduli.

The Financial Services Tribunal (FST) has set aside a determination by the Pension Funds Adjudicator in a dispute between the South African Institute of Professional Accountants (SAIPA) and its former chief executive, Shahied Daniels, ruling that the Adjudicator lacked jurisdiction to investigate his complaint about the withholding of his pension benefit.

The Council for Medical Schemes has set out why it declined the Government Employees Medical Scheme’s request to reduce its weighted average 2026 contribution increase from 9.5% to 7.5%, saying the lower increase would have undermined the scheme’s long-term financial sustainability and ultimately disadvantaged members. The explanation follows calls from organised labour for greater transparency after GEMS announced that the CMS had not approved its proposal to reduce the contribution increase.