#59 Lelané Bezuidenhout – Transcript

Louis van der Merwe
Welcome to another episode of Financial Planners, South Africa. Today I have in the studio with me, the CEO of the Financial Planning Institute of southern Africa Lelane Bezuidenhout. Lelane has been on my list of one of the first case and we actually only got around to having this conversation on the second season. The Lelane, thank you so much for joining me today,

Lelané Bezuidenhout
Louis. It’s only a pleasure. And thank you so much for the invite, and I’m thrilled to be on your show. Thank you so much.

Louis van der Merwe
I know you have a passion for financial planning. And I think in today’s conversation, we’ll have to probably slow down some of the conversations because when we both get excited, we speed up Lelane for the people that have heard your name, and have heard about the Financial Planning Institute, but maybe aren’t yet members, can you give us a little bit of background of what your current role is and what the Financial Planning Institute sets out to do?

Lelané Bezuidenhout
Absolutely. Now, for me, you know, being the current chief executive office officer of the Financial Planning Institute is really a calling. When I look at when my career started in the financial services industry, I believe I’m placed here for a reason and I’ve got an absolute passion for turning your stumbling blocks into stepping stones. So my colleagues here at the FBI always thinks Ilana you know what, there’s really something wrong with you. But I love dealing with complaints. Because complaints if you look at the way my career started the big financial services provider that I started at, I specialized in pension funds adjudicator complaint phase ombudsman, now, for global audience, the phase ombudsman is the financial advisory intermediary Services Act that we have. So the ombudsman then obviously became the ombudsman for financial services providers, but they are known as the face on but now you’ve got various ombuds, globally. So I love to dealing with those complaints, because you could really hone in to see where the problem is, you could really own in the same way, where do we have a lack of standards? Way? Do we have issues where the consumers interests are not being looked after. So it’s the no surprise that when there was an opportunity at the Financial Planning Institute of southern Africa and 2014, that I applied to become the certifications manager, we are worked very closely with the global affiliates and setting standards. Shortly after that I became the head of the certifications and standards department, where we then work to in close collaboration with the financial planning standards boards, the Conduct Authority in South Africa and all sorts of other regulators like the Council for medical schemes that people don’t know. Yeah, we work very close with with those type of regulators. So the Financial Planning Institute is all about setting standards. And if you look at our vision statement, it is professional financial planning and advice for all. So recently, Louis, you would know as a proud member of the Financial Planning Institute, that we updated our vision, because we believe that we need standards, not just for financial planning, but for professional financial advice as well. So a lot of our members think that we are actually our DNA is something like a financial services provider, we as it’s actually not, our DNA is that of an education provider. So if you look at our regulator, yes, the FBI does have a regulator which is Sokha DISA with African Qualifications Authority, we need to meet these standards, we also have all sorts of conduct standards that the FBI needs to adhere to. One of the very strong principles that I believe in, is recognition of prior learning. Now, that’s not unique to South Africa, but it’s very needed in South Africa. Because we have a lot of individuals that’s been in the industry for a very long time. But they may have different qualifications, but they really want to become a professional member of the FBI. So it’s all about removing unnecessary barriers. It’s about mentoring. It’s about coaching. And it’s about making sure that we have enough professional members in South Africa to actually serve as the 60 million that we have, do we have enough? Not yet. So that is, in a nutshell, what the FBI is, and maybe one or two other things as that we all recognize controlling body of the South African revenue services as well. And I normally don’t say sauce. Because people globally don’t understand that SARS in South Africa is not a virus, but it’s the South African revenue services. The an ad, like I also said affiliate of the financial planning standards board, abroad one and like I said, a professional body of soccer as well. So that’s in a nutshell, who we only

Louis van der Merwe
Leilani, you mentioned the area of complaint, and kind of how that intrigued you to see, in a way did things go wrong? What would you say to younger financial planners could they do to prevent these complaints or learn from complaints in the past? Was there anything that stood out for you, that seemed to have been a very easy mess,

Lelané Bezuidenhout
it’s all behavior, if I can put it in one box for you. It’s about behavior. Now I remember, in my days at ombuds. Office, I used to take a what we know is a compliance file. And I would just put it in a chronological arrangement on the big boardroom table that we had and I would go from if you look at the financial planning steps that we have, which is the the practice standards, you know, you start with in establishing the relationship with the client. So I would start looking at the steps chronologically. And you could very easily see sometimes when it was I’m going to call it a premeditated sale, because somebody was pushing target. So for me, the biggest flaw is behavior. And that conflict of interest that comes in when you put your own interests first, and not the interest of the client. So there’s two very important principles that the younger financial planners, but also somebody who really wants to professionalize new really buys into the standards of professionalism. The first one, if you look at the general Code of Conduct talks about the appropriateness of advice. So you need to make sure that this product suitability, you need to make sure that when you’re looking at the client’s needs, that it’s really something that the client needs, and maybe not a target that you’re chasing. So I’m trying to put this as softly and politely as I can, but don’t chase targets. Because if you chase targets, you chase the wrong thing. If you trade the right thing, which is putting the interest of your clients always first, the rest will follow. You don’t even have to try right at heart, because the moment that you do the right thing, you are rewarded in life. Now, the other principle is also the fiduciary standard. So the fiduciary standard is literally all about always putting the client’s interest first. And always being aware of the conflict of interest. So if I can sum it up for you watch your behavior, check your own values, make sure that you are chasing the right thing, which is the interest of the client at all times. So it’s about behavior, Louis,

Louis van der Merwe
we’ve seen globally that this idea of the fiduciary standard is really important. But then you have countries like the United States pushing back on that legislation. Where does the fiduciary requirements sit at the moment in South Africa? And are we are we by law required to be a fiduciary for our clients?

Lelané Bezuidenhout
Yeah. Not not by law to answer your question outright. But it’s something that’s implied. If you really understand what the fiduciary standard is all about. It’s something that’s inherent, you know, if you’re a true professional, it doesn’t have to be codified in law for you to understand what it’s about. In short,

Louis van der Merwe
I absolutely agree with that the way you show up and the way you do should be your client first. I had a colleague that said, one of the service providers, any benefit to the client was purely coincidental. That’s the structure that we’re trying to

Lelané Bezuidenhout
change. Absolutely. You know, and that is the interesting change that we see Louie coming through the conduct of financial institutions coffee bill in South Africa. You know, gone are the days when you have the big financial services providers who under the older regulatory framework could say, oh, you know what, it’s not about agents. One of our agents so we can wash our hands. You know, you can’t do that, as a financial services provider in terms, you’re very well aware of the fit and proper standards in South Africa, that talks about your competency and you continuous professional development, you can no longer as a financial services provider, wash your hands and say, I am potentially not guilty, you have to make sure that whether it’s an independent financial planner, or we’re tied as we learn South Africa independence and your times, it’s not about who you work for, but it’s what you do in terms of the activities, and you should at all times, be caught doing the right thing. I always say to my children, and I have two fantastic boys, which you know, I love them dearly. And they always ask me more can I do this cannot do that. And I say to them, if you understand the consequences, and you willing to live through the consequences, by all means? My answer is yes. So always think about the consequences of your actions. And I think that’s also a message for the young individuals always think through, you should always be called to doing the right thing. You know, if you’ve got blonde knocking on your door, walking in, what are they gonna catch you doing is hopefully the right thing.

Louis van der Merwe
This is not too dissimilar from clients having to understand what are the implications of the decisions? Now I think we’re very much the thinking partners and helping them to make decisions. And so now we’re seeing the financial products may be becoming less important. Do you think the shift away from product and into professional advice? Have we gone too far have we missed some of the important building blocks of financial planning?

Lelané Bezuidenhout
For me, it’s about getting the balance, right? You have to strike a balance between understanding that a financial product is a recommendation that comes off to these a few things that you’ve done, you can’t just and that’s why I say that premeditated sale, you cannot walk into a 27 year olds, office, or wherever you meet with them and say you need a retirement annuity. Because you’ve got to talk to chase. So for me, it’s finding the balance. It’s about understanding. And if we look at what’s happening on a global level, Louis, you have you understand this, because I have reached out to you before as well, is truly understanding when you collect the information of the client, it’s not just about do you ever will qualitative, quantitative, quantitative information, it’s about understanding the client’s values. It’s about understanding the client’s biases, it’s about understanding what makes the client fearful. And it’s all it’s not necessarily the bull and the bear markets, it’s sometimes things that happen in their lives to the parents, something that happened to them. And as a financial planner, was a professional person, you truly need to understand that you need to have strong listening skills. And I think that’s where we go wrong, you have to learn to keep quiet, and not switch off, because a lot of the people switch off when you keep quiet because now you can’t actually have your say, Keep quiet, truly listen to what the clients need. So it’s in the face of collecting the qualitative and quantitative information that you’ll get a feel for who the client really is, if you don’t really have an understanding of who you think the client is, the way that you’re going to analyze the information would be with your own biases, you know, and I think that’s one of the things we need to be very careful of as a certified financial planner, or any of the professional members of the FBI. And even if you’re not a member of the FBI, be aware of your own biases, when you then go into the analysis phase. And when you make that recommendation, as a professional, you don’t always recommend a product, you may find that the client doesn’t necessarily the client may not need a financial product. All they needed maybe was just somebody to listen to them and say, You know what, if I look at your spending habits, it’s not a good idea when you’re upset with your husband to go on a retail, splash, you know, let’s just work with those behavioral aspects. You know, and we need to be, and this is where we need to be clear as professional members when you have the competencies to work with somebody or not. The moment that you that you move into the psychology section of a client’s mind, you need to be very careful that that sometimes you can’t help the client sometimes this deeper rooted issues, but we need to understand that we can do financial coaching, helping them understand that the client to understand this is maybe why you’re behaving a certain way. So it’s not just about the financial product. lubaina think that we we sometimes miss it, you don’t have to walk out of a client meeting, recommending a financial product most of the times you do but sometimes that’s not what the client needed. They just needed a financial coach to help them understand that they spending habits is not what it should be considering the needs and make goals

Louis van der Merwe
Milania love how you’ve positioned these different offerings. But when we get together around a bride on an aeroplane and someone sits next to you and said, Oh, I had a broker that stole my money, or I had this terrible experience. I’d love to hear how you respond to those. Those comments that we so often get as, as the CEO of the Financial Planning Institute, like how do you approach that?

Lelané Bezuidenhout
Yeah, it’s first and foremost, staff to listen to it. I find it a bit deflating. I must be very honest with your men, you know, member quite an honest person. I’ll tell you, I’ve found a deflating because we think we’ve come a long way. And we did you know, if I go back to when I started in about 1998, in the financial services industry, and we come from the days where we talk about PPR policyholder protection rules, you know, we don’t even know what face was when it came in. We’re like, Oh, my goodness, what is this, we don’t know what capital gains tax was, by the way. It’s something that came in, I’m giving my age away a little bit here. But you know what, those are the things. So I do want to give credit to that we’ve come a long way. But we need to make peace with the fact that we still have a very long way to go. So when you do sit on the plane, you do hear these comments. And I think this is where we need to start pulling together with the regulators or the professionals together. And there’s two issues that we need to deal with in and I’m going to focus on South Africa. But it’s not unique to South Africa. But let’s just focus on South Africa. It’s about truly understanding what financial inclusion is, how do we include everybody in South Africa into the financial system that we have. So it’s financial inclusion, but it’s also access to financial advice, I believe we’ve got a problem with that in South Africa. But also, it’s about the consumer understanding what a professional member of the FBI, for instance, is all about. So we have to, first and foremost, always say that, you know, would we have a lot of members that will say, you know, what is the FBI doing for me and promoting my services, I want to reverse that a little bit and say, You need to understand that you are the member of the professional body. And that is why the FBI exist, we exist, because the definition of a professional body is it’s a collective of professional members that comes together for the greater good of all. So we need to understand that when you disclose to your to your client, and I think I’ve got a better it, and I’m going to share this with you. I hate templates. You know, there’s individuals that print a stack of disclosure letters. You know, I absolutely hate that. Because you need to understand that your own marketing strategy about who you are starts with your disclosure letter and your introduction letter. That is, if you can frame it, you should you should review that, at least every quarter to make sure am I making sure that the product, the product that you actually put forward first, you know, is yourself because the client needs to trust you. So I want to go back to that client on the plane, I won’t necessarily take them head on and say you don’t understand what the professionals all about, you know, start with a conversation, try to understand where the individual was laid down. And that’ll be one then again, this most probably a stumbling block that you will find in the clients conversation. And then I will hone in on the stumbling block and see how can we bring that back to the FBI and make sure it’s incorporated into the standards. Sometimes it’s really just the client not understanding or even knowing about the services that a financial advisor or professional member of the FBI actually delivers. And with that, you know, if there’s any consumers online, that is listening, please visit WWE dot let’s plan dot 0.0. And, you know, the let’s plan, it takes you through a journey of discovering what who you are when you deal with your own fun of finances. But then also in the end, you know, you come to the realization or you should come to the realization that you need the help of a professional financial advisor or planner. And there is a call to action. So in other words, if you go on the website and say I am from Centurion, I can put in the suburb and it will list every single professional member of the FBI. That’s actually very close to me. And and a shout out if you do have your profile on please make sure that you have the latest picture of yourself that clients can recognize when they see you it mustn’t be one that’s two decades old. And it will also be your latest buyer who I am What is your competencies and what is your areas of expertise? Because that’s how clients then actually connect with a financial professional, professional member of the Financial Planning Institute.

Louis van der Merwe
I mean, once again, it’s this concept of listening to the person finding out where their pain point or that stumbling block is and then that becoming steppingstone. Leilani, who’s the person in your life that you think is the best listener,

Lelané Bezuidenhout
my husband, I have to say that I firmly believe that we were joined as one, sometimes he doesn’t listen, but for me personally, it has to be my husband. But if I can take it to the professional level, a client dealing with with us, a client expects you to be a very good listener, you’ll very quickly find that a client will come and visit you. And they will very quickly realize when you’re not there to listen. And then of course, you can, you can, that skill of listening, you really need to taste it, and I want to pull it through, if I may, quickly to emotional intelligence, I spend some time with the lending circle about a month ago, where we just really had a deeper dive into self awareness and think, you as a financial planner, one of your skills, and as a professional member, one of your skills should be very good listening skills, but you will not have very good listening skills if you have absolutely no self awareness. So what is self awareness? Self awareness is being a way of the self when you’re working with people. So do you know what impact you have on people? Do people get excited when you enter the room? Or do they want to run away? You know, how do your clients you know, how do they feel about you? It’s the dreaded review. Oh, I’m so excited, I can’t wait to speak to Louis, I’ve got so much to tell him, you know. So first and foremost, be self aware what effect you have on your clients, and grow through the journey of of discovering yourself, understanding of self awareness, then understanding the impact you have on your client. But then also social awareness, you must be able when you walk into a crowd to read the ground, to understand what they need. Also, let’s talk about consumer education. So if you go into a crowd, and you assist FBI with fpis, Mamoni 123 program, you should have that awareness, that social awareness, a guy can read the ground, and then again, that awareness of what the ground expects of you. So to circle back to your question, you know, you’re it’s for me personally, you need to have somebody in your life that listens to you, whoever that is, but you need to find that person. Because the best listener, is also the person that would give you honest feedback, because they gave you the time to listen to you. And they will give you honest feedback. And when you receive honest feedback, don’t take it personally take it as an opportunity to grow as a person.

Louis van der Merwe
So Lonnie, do we incorporate this emotional intelligence into the CFP curriculum for people studying that, is there a place for it? And how is that curriculum evolving?

Lelané Bezuidenhout
That is a fantastic question. Thank you for that question, Louis. The answer is, yes, we are busy incorporating it. Is there enough in the curriculum though? You know, if we look at the education model in South Africa, it’s one that’s purely academic at this point in time. So you have the academic you know, you could, when you put that student down for the final case study exam, you could verbatim leave mentioned, every single section of whichever Act applies to the case study, and you’ll apply it. But now you plunk the person into a real life situation. So we find that there is sometimes a disconnect, and we call it synthesis in the education environment. So if that synthesis is lacking, in other words, your ability to take the academic knowledge, your experience, bring it together and and put it in one comprehensive skill to actually assist a client. We are finding that individuals that came straight out of the university. In other words, you have not had the experience to maybe obtain some of the experience at a financial planning practice or at a big corporate again, it’s not about who you work for, it’s what you do. So I want to make that clear, there is no we are voting for the tide or the independent. It’s not about who you work for what you do. So if you haven’t had that opportunity to obtain some experience, I have found that some of the candidates are really battling in the FPS professional competency examination. So you will find that we’ve beefed up our PCE and short the professional competency examination is the PCE. So you’ll find that we’ve beefed up PCE components up quite dramatically to assist the candidate because you’re student when you’re still studying, but you are a candidate the moment that you’ve obtained your qualification and you are preparing for what is also commonly known as the board exam. What we’ve also developed at the FBI is what we call the capstone course. So the capstone course is where we take the academic level and we take the experience level and we throw some emotional intelligence in so that can some quarters been developed and we are taking hands with LexisNexis to help us develop the Capstone book. So I say to myself, You know what, by the time that I leave, if that was one of my dreams is I want to have the Capstone book in my hand. And I want to say to Canada that come and sit for the exam. Yes, the Capstone book that looks at how do you take the academic component, mix it up with experience and bring the emotional intelligence into play. And then you come and sit for the exam. So there’s one or two big changes coming through. And maybe you need to think about how say this. So if we look at the PC exam, can somebody necessarily do full on financial planning once you pass the exam, not necessarily, because that lack of experience sometimes still comes through. That’s why the capstone course is so important. So we are looking at changing the structure of the exam, where we would have potentially a standard setting exam at the various educational providers to make sure that it meets the academic standard. And then once you come to the FBI, it would not necessarily be a board exam that you are used to it would be a case study, where you would be allowed to use financial planning technology. And you would then have the opportunity to choose between a few case studies from one January to 31 December, pick a case study use financial planning technology and hand in a financial plan. So that we can see if you can really apply the knowledge that you have actually obtained. But the recommendation is, is that individuals should have at least one or two years experience before they actually then take of that exam. Now to your question of the curriculum. So I know financial planning standards boards, international level, we are aware that the CFP Board had update as updated the curriculum to incorporate the psychology of financial planning. I did order the psychology of financial planning, and they quote Dr. Bradley clots quite a lot in that book, so CFP Board was one of the first affiliates now remember, the CFP Board is one of the International affiliates of the financial planning standards board. So at this point in time, we’ve just handed in our public comment on the 27th of July, into the new curriculum of CFD, the Certified Financial Planner curriculum. And in that curriculum, there is a whole new module, it’s the ninth module that deals with the psychology of financial planning. But our recommendation is that it shouldn’t be a loose standing module that just says the psychology of financial planning, it should be incorporated into the psychology of investment planning, the psychology of tax planning, the psychology of retirement planning, estate planning, and so forth. It’s not something that you can box and say it’s it’s unique to just retirement planning. It is unique to the whole suite of financial planning. And it’s literally truly understanding, I almost want to say the DNA of your client, the emotional being, you know, we’re not working with robots, we are emotional beings. And that’s why we have to deal with the psychology of financial planning. So that’s good news. We’re hoping to see the finalized curriculum by the end of the year, and FPSB, within depending on the global meetings that we have started rolling out 2023 2024. So I’m very excited to confirm that we are not oblivious to the fact that the curriculum needs to be updated. But I am still worried about the practical component, the experience, you know, in South Africa, the academic qualification does not have enough what we call will wi L, which is the work integrated learning component. I do know that some of the educational provider providers are starting to look at the world component. And this is where Nikki McDonald, we’re head of certification and standards is working quite closely with some of the educational providers in South Africa. So it’s exciting times.

Louis van der Merwe
There’s a lot going on. And I want to add at this point that it’s probably a good thing for people listening to attend the FBI convention this year, because we will be having a panel discussion about the psychology of financial planning. Very excited

Lelané Bezuidenhout
for you so much for being on the panel. When we look at individuals in South Africa immediately say to live a must be on the panel. So thank you, it’s critical. Yeah, it’s critical

Louis van der Merwe
Leilani this this this concept of peer review, if we look at the medical fields where you would have a patient and different doctors would give the input in terms of of that patient. Why don’t we have that in financial planning where we conduct peer reviews on financial plan? I know you’re saying that there’s an element of the human side that’s maybe difficult to capture it In the financial plan, but it feels like there’s a piece missing where we are helping each other to deliver better financial plans. Is there a way that we can explore that? Or is it just my naivety to think that it would work? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Lelané Bezuidenhout
It can definitely work in as the US we need to be reminded financial planning is still a very young profession. You know, it’s not if we look at the medical profession, I mean, that is as all this time itself. It has evolved from the days where they take a hammer and whisking, take out your wisdom teeth to a lot more advanced technology. Thank goodness, the importance of CPD should never be underestimated. But directly to your question, peer collaboration, and peer to peer review is very important. We are a young profession. And as the FBI recently we started hosting peer collaboration sessions, you know, and cover has made that possible for us because we can have a lot of certified financial planners, registered financial practitioners, and our FSA. So to RFP, FSA and CFP professionals we can have online, and the latest peer collaboration session that we had was unremunerated structures. What should it look like? Is there a standard? Should we charge a certain amount for certain services? So that was quite robust discussions. And, you know, so we’ve had a few peer collaborative sessions, but we don’t have enough of that, you know, we should rely on each other as as professionals to say, this is what I’m doing. And the is sometimes okay, you know, that resistance to say, but hold on, if I share this with you, I’m giving away some of my competitive advantage. So you do see that happening. But again, I want to say that that we are a young profession, and we are evolving into understanding the benefit of peer collaboration. So in pockets within let’s talk about South Africa and pockets within South Africa, there’s definitely a deeper understanding for for seeing the benefit of peer to peer collaboration. We are definitely, as I said, starting to see that with the peer collaboration sessions that we have, we are trying to have at least one per month, we FPI then also hones in on the practice standards to see what type of tools can we develop to help the financial planner to implement the practice standards into your practice, whether you are working for big corporate or whether you work in for yourself? How do you implement the standards into your practice, and it’s only possible for the FPR to develop those tools. Once we’ve had wide consultation and peer collaboration. So let’s talk about FBI what we have, you will be familiar with the competency committees that we have. Now that is a brilliant example of peer collaboration that happens within the FBI because my colleagues are double wide David Cobb, Nicky runoff, Merton de and myself, we just do it, we don’t have enough hands to go and develop the tools ourselves. And the tools that we develop is as a direct result of the peer collaboration that we are doing with, for instance, the practice standards committee, in the pens on on what standards it is that we need to set, but specifically the practice standards committee is where there’s a lot of peer collaboration is taking place. And that is where a lot of the experience, especially CFP professionals give up the pro bono time because you know, what peer collaborate collaboration is also being willing to give a little bit of yourself back to the profession, for the sake of mentoring the new ones coming in, but also for the sake of making sure that the profession evolves into into the profession that we really want to see. So it’s important, can we do more always?

Louis van der Merwe
Is there a risk of wanting to do too much?

Lelané Bezuidenhout
Yes. You can suffer burnout. Yeah, I can tell you more about that another day. There is a risk and there is a risk in doing too much. You need to make sure that you start with a vision. If you don’t have a vision, you’re just going to be like a wave that’s being tossed in the wind. You know, your use would sometimes be known, you know, would be as you know what, and I’ve got a principle your yes must be Yes. And your number has been? So you need to have a bigger vision, what is it that you’re trying to achieve? And then like in financial planning, you need to set strategic goals you need to put the division plays, how do we get to ensuring the peer collaboration grows within South Africa that the standards becomes more entrenched in financial planning practices. So yes, start with a vision know what you want, but also know who you can trust and who you can rely on. You know, you need a very strong team to move forward. I don’t believe in Lone Ranger ship, a lone ranger, you know, it’s not a good space to be in you need it. team that you constantly can collaboratively collaborate with somebody you can trust. But also within FBI, there’s a very strong belief in continuous professional development. And with that, I’m not just talking about the normal CPD that we do as certified financial planners as well. But continuously developing your skills, so that you can be what your peers expect you to be. So yes, there’s a risk of doing too much you need to plan.

Louis van der Merwe
So Leilani with the FBIs vision of delivering financial planning and professional advice to all, we’ve had a little bit of criticism that, you know, it’s trying to be too much for everyone, we’ve seen the cost of advice increase, what would be your take on potential ways that we can deliver financial planning to the people that maybe previously not have had the opportunity to receive professional advice? Like, are they institutions that are working on this, that’s actually getting this done? For me, as an independent practice owner, it almost feels like, oh, we need to leave that up to the banks, or the big institutions to solve, we wouldn’t be able to make a difference. I’d love us to just unpack that a little bit.

Lelané Bezuidenhout
I think we need to understand that. I’m going to use you as an example. You can never be everything to everyone. And we need to make peace with that you can’t. But we need to understand that relying on principles of partnership, relying on you know, that’s very important, you know, via partnerships we can. So will FBI be able to ensure that there’s professional financial planning and advice for all, not all means all 16 million, give or take within South Africa. It’s not possible if we do it on our own. But it is possible if we believe in the principles of partnership. So just one or two things that professional members of FPR may or may not know, you know, we’ve taken hands, with with other professional bodies, for instance, where we work together and in achieving common goals. One of the latest ones you would have seen was the retirement conference where we take hands with the actuarial society. We’ve also taken hands with the Institute of retirements, Africa, and there is a different needs. Let’s talk about benefit counseling versus financial advice. You know, the one is not wrong, and the other one is right. And I think we need to make peace with the fact that there is a place in the world retirement benefit counseling. But we need to understand we work together with the Institute of retirement funds and also the other professional body but Sita that works with the trustees and the principal officers. And this is where the FBI is a professional body, robustly via our stakeholder engagement and our advocacy policy, we make sure that we robustly engage with those type of bodies to say how do we take hands, for the trustees and the principal officers of retirement funds, for instance, to understand the need for professional financial advice. So retirement benefit counseling, you know, three months before you retire, you know, if there’s never been professional financial advice, you know, that there’s a danger of those retirees very soon moving in with their children, you know, the sandwich generation and some of the problems that we sit with in South Africa. By the way, it’s not unique to South Africa, but we need to take hands so as FPI, I do want to say, you know, what was with the giver, tech 6000 Professional members of FBI, it’s not possible to deliver on that vision. But working very closely to, for instance, national treasury, where we assist, we sit on some of those committees where we sit, where we put together curriculums for, for instance, financial literacy. So we’re not driving it. It is an initiative that comes from national treasury but FBI is is is robustly involved in that Rihanna, Banos and David Karp, where they sit at national treasury and look at what should be in a financial literacy curriculum for South Africa, for instance, we work we work in collaboration with the Conduct Authority, for instance, and setting standards.

You know, if we look at the fit and proper requirements, how do we better align some of our certification standards, you know, to make sure that if you’re compliant from an FBI point of view, that you are automatically compliant with some of the conduct standards that’s going to come in, but also the board notice. So we have to believe and see the bigger picture that you cannot achieve all of this on your own. But we can via principles of partnership, I mean, we work close with actuarial society, we have Memorandum of incorporation, understanding my apologies. in place with them, we have an MOU in place with Urfa. We are working closely with him so for instance, to understand, we emphasize the Institute of risk management to understand what and we have a key individual workshop coming up one of these days and This is where we’re looking at the Institute of risk management, together with the compliance Institute to say for liquid calcium, the Porky individual, he or she needs to understand from a risk management point of view, what is kofi? want from me? What could the conduct standards look like? From a compliance point of view? Why does my regulatory universe as a financial services provider look like. And then also from a corporate governance point of view, honing in on King four, and the accountability of directors and understanding is a key person also key individual going forward another COFI environment, well, come to the key individual workshop to find out more. So this is where we take hands to professionalize on the one hand, but then also to get to the consumer to your question, if I may circle back is, how do we make sure that there’s financial inclusion? And how do we make sure that there’s access to advice, there’s various ways you could bring in technology, your we saw working to see if they could maybe be a tax deduction for access to advice, but in South Africa, maybe we need to look at other ways we can do it. If one looks, for instance, at your scorecard, maybe one could obtain more points for consumer education initiatives, you know, so those are the types of things that that I think we shouldn’t always just look at at a tax deduction, there is other ways that one could look at encouraging, you know, access to financial advice, we’ve got a lot to do. So this

Louis van der Merwe
is not necessarily traditional financial planning, you have to go through the six steps, and you have to help them person it could be, what difference are you making in that person’s life? What is consumer education? Have you helped? How have you helped them make decisions? And I think maybe that’s a key principle, because as a member of the FBI, I immediately thought it would have to be through that process, but the way you’ve positioned it, you know, we have a role to play in the lives of our clients and the employees of the companies that we look after. And that can filter through to the 16 million individuals,

Lelané Bezuidenhout
it can and I want to add a little bit of an interesting view to it. So if you look at so we’ve got the fund managers, everybody’s ESG, ESG, you know, you need to incorporate ESG. But let’s look at how can we incorporate some of the ESG principles in a professional body? Is that even possible? The answer is always yes. You know, from an environmental point of view, there’s not much we can do. But if you look at the social element, you know, there’s there’s a lot we can do from a social element point of view, in terms of giving back to your community, and that, again, is speaking to financial inclusion. So it’s about that social element that comes in, but obviously, then your corporate governance principle comes in. There’s a corporate governance principle in King four that talks about your good corporate citizen. And that’s about giving back to the community. And I think we should not lose sight of giving back. Yep. So that’s what FBA is about, as well.

Louis van der Merwe
Again, it talks about the five areas of wellbeing, and community is a big piece in everyone’s well being not just are you helping your community, but the contribution that that makes to you, as an individual? Absolutely,

Lelané Bezuidenhout
you’re and it does. I am somebody that I feel quite warm and fuzzy, the moment that I can give, I’m not a taker, I’m a giver. That’s just my personality is the more I can give, I would literally give you the last whatever I have. And I’ve got a principle that I will always give something that I truly wanted myself, you know, it won’t be oh, there’s something in the cupboard. I’m sure there’s a prison I can give to somebody, I would always buy something I like, and I want this myself, but then I give it away, because that’s been truly a gift. And I think what we give is, and I’m going to maybe highlight this, the one thing that we don’t want to give away is time, because it’s a very scarce commodity these days. But time is exactly what you should give away time off yourself time of your expertise time of what you can give back for the greater good of all.

Louis van der Merwe
Exactly, because it’s such a scarce commodity makes it valuable right

Lelané Bezuidenhout
time time. Yeah. And I mean, I think it was yesterday, I was 30 years old. And when I look again, I’m almost you know, I’m trading closer to to half a century.

Louis van der Merwe
Someone said so do you plus VAT? Do you go to Milan? Yes. Coming up to the end of our conversation. If you were to give your sons a checklist of what they should look at for a financial planner, let’s say they’re in the market to hire financial planner, what would that guide that like for them?

Lelané Bezuidenhout
First and foremost, somebody you can trust. That’s very important. You know, once the trust is broken, it’s something you can never get back. competency. Somebody when you walk in, I think the one thing I saw LinkedIn posts the other day where they’re asked Why our clients not asking for our qualifications, they never asked us for a qualification. So why do we need the designation? Why do we need the qualification so that you giggle because the moment that your client asks you for your qualification, then you should know you’re in trouble. Because your skills and your competency that you are displaying should tell this person but I am dealing with a professional member, you know, as I, you know, period burst and if they ever have to ask somebody show me your qualifications, I’ll get worried because, again, it’s your competency. Is it your skills, it’s about being up to date with what’s going on, not just in the South African economy, but globally. You know, and with the Gen Z’s which is Generation Z boomers and the millennials coming in, we need to understand that they financial planning needs I’m sitting with a millennial and Gen Z. And the difference between Boston and Pirrie is like day and night. You know, the one is all over the show, the other one is a lot more focused. And he would straight out early you know what I’m not gonna deal with you the other one was so give you an opportunity in millennials, you know, it’s just completely different, the Zoomers that’s coming in. They want to hold you 100% accountable and responsible. I mean, the one day I was sulking about something I can’t even remember what. But it was an important thing that I can’t remember. And Bastian just said to me, straight out Mom, stop feeling sorry for yourself. Just like that. And no, no plaster that comes with it. So honesty is what you can give the young people. Yeah, so that’s what my sons would look for is honesty, transparency, trust, and very importantly, competence.

Louis van der Merwe
What a wonderful list. I have a Gen alpha at home. And so it’s going to be interesting to see what this profession will look like 2025 years from now. Lelane thank you so much for the difference that you’re making in the lives of financial planners globally, not just in South Africa, and the lives of every South African that gets to interact with them. I don’t think we we say that often enough. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Lelané Bezuidenhout
That’s a pleasure, Louis, thank you very much. Again, I believe in giving back and it’s a calling. And if you’re unhappy and this is maybe a message to the young ones. If you’re unhappy in what you’re doing. Maybe it’s not your calling. You should be living your calling every day. Thank you.

Louis van der Merwe
What a great way to end this conversation. All the best. Bye bye.

Lelané Bezuidenhout
Thank you blessings to you and your listeners.