Strategies for keeping customers with PFAs in the event of lifting the Transfer Window-Odunze Reginald C

Image credited to Telegraph

Strategies according to Professor Anao, "are schemes, maneuvers, methods, and plans which organizations or individuals hope to deploy in order to function effectively". Retirement is essential one of the basic facts of life and people save for two basic reasons, to make lots of money and to provide for the retirement. And according to a recent research, "are more likely save to cater for their retirement than to be rich". The following can be in place in achieving customer retention during the Transfer window:

Appropriate customer service and relationship management should be the key as most customers are dissatisfied with the services of the PFAs, in a recent forum in Lagos, the AGM , Public Sector of the National Pension Commission Mr. Abbo Mamman, noted “that what will keep PFAs in business of the level of satisfaction, customer loyalty and brand projection they are able to sustain with their customers, adding that all PFAs are looking forward to the transfer window noting that the customers that will be transferred will be from one PFA to the other”

Giving them statements at the right time, as most customers complained of never receiving our statement. Efforts should be geared towards the e-statement as it is the key to reaching customers at the right time, as internet covers and abridge space and time, the need for that could not be over emphasize as Abbo Mamman noted and advised customer to promptly report PFAs who are unable to give them their statements as at when due.

Resolving issues within the shortest possible time, especially issues of unremitted months etc. Most of the issues of unfunded in the public sectors arises due to several factors, among them includes inability to present documents and facts for nominal roll, wrong capture of public sectors customers as they migrate to IPPIS. (Integrated payment Pay slip Information system) with about 144 MDAs on the IPPIS list and still counting, it becomes increasingly important to do it well at in its inception. With the migration of pilot MDAs like Education, Finance Foreign affairs and 4 others in batch 1 of the IPPIS in April 2007. And the fact that some of these workers are still having un remitted months with most of the PFAs, it becomes important to do it well at the beginning ,  I don't care   attitude of public workers , default setting by the IPPIS officers and issues of double and triple RSA PINs has created such loop holes in achieving the desired result. And minimizing that PFAs should liaise with these customers in alleviating that as majority of them do no know that they created such issues, although there may be issues arising from PFAs on that regard.

To be continued…..

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The 5 jobs with the worst gender wage gap-By Mandi Woodruff

Nothing was sweeter than watching the U.S. National Women’s soccer team bring home their first world championship in 16 years earlier this month. But their victory also put a spotlight on the shocking pay gap that divides female and male athletes today.

Women soccer players can earn as little as $6,000 per year. Male players earn a minimum of $60,000. This is one of the most dramatic examples of wage disparity today, but what about women working off the soccer field — in hospitals, courtrooms and offices around the country?

In the video above, we take a look at the 5 jobs with the widest gender pay gaps in America, according to the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank:

5. Housekeeping supervisors

4. Money managers
3. Stockbrokers
2. Physicians and surgeons
1. Financial advisors
On average, women in America earn 78 cents for every dollar a man makes. And although the wage gap has gotten much narrower over the last 30 years, that progress is beginning to plateau. Women’s earnings have remained largely unchanged in the last decade, according to a report by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

Researchers have been stumped by the wage gap in America for years, and experts say it could take another 40 years for the wage gap to finally close because there are so many different factors at play. 

Claudia Goldin, an economics professor at Harvard University, says the solution to closing the gender pay gap could lie in the hands of employers themselves: by creating work environments that encourage flexible, family-friendly work schedules. Part of the reason the gap is higher in lucrative fields like medicine and financial services is because workers are rewarded substantially for working longer hours, the kind of hours a working woman with a family to care for can't always commit to.

"The gender gap in hourly compensation would vanish if firms did not have a financial incentive to pay employees working 80 hours a week more than twice what they would receive for 40-hour weeks," she writes in the July issue of the Milken Institute Review.

Childcare costs have never been higher — exceeding $11,000 per year on average — and the U.S. is one of few developed nations that doesn’t have a universal child care system. It's widely accepted that access to good, affordable daycare could help shrink the gender pay gap. In two-parent households, it sometimes makes more financial sense for one parent to quit their job and stay home rather than shell out cash for daycare. And although there are more stay-at-home dads today than ever before, this duty still largely falls to women.

“Because women still are socially and individually responsible for the brunt of home care, it’s often women who end up scaling back their work hours,” says Sarah Jane, director of women's economic policy at CAP.  “That ends up having a disproportionate impact on their wages.”

The U.S. is also the only developed country in the world that doesn’t mandate paid maternity leave, which makes it harder for women who want to advance in their careers and also take time to start a family.  We could encourage women to negotiate more often for higher pay but that’s not entirely fair -- studies have shown hiring managers resent, rather than respect, women who negotiate.

Culled from Yahoo Finance

Google rallies as profit beats forecasts on ad revenue growth

A logo is pictured at Google's European Engineering Center in Zurich April16, 2015. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

By Anya George Tharakan and Yasmeen Abutaleb

BENGALURU/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Shares of Google Inc rose nearly 12 percent after the Web search leader's profit beat forecasts for the first time in the last six quarters, boosted by strong advertising revenue and comments by its new chief financial officer on disciplined spending.

Google rallied to $673.50 in extended trading after closing at $601.78 on Nasdaq. That would mark an all-time high for the stock in regular trading if it closes at that level on Friday, adding roughly $40 billion to its market value.

Google remains the most valuable publicly traded U.S. company after Apple Inc.

Google's expenses rose 10 percent to $12.9 billion in the second quarter ended June 30 from the year-ago quarter, and remained at 73 percent of revenue, the company said on Thursday. But expenses only grew by $91 million from the first quarter, and as a percentage of revenue declined by 1 percentage point.

"The decline in quarter-over-quarter operating expenses reflects, in part, discipline in expense management and, in part, lower legal expenses than in comparable periods," CFO Ruth Porat told analysts on a conference call.
Google's stock rally also appeared to reflect Porat's comments. The stock was up a little over 7 percent after the close of regular trading and steadily rose during the call as she talked about keeping expenses under control.

Advertising revenue grew 11 percent to $16.02 billion from the year-ago quarter, while the number of ads, or paid clicks, rose 18 percent, the company said.

Advertisers pay Google only if a user clicks on one of its ads. "Cost per click," or the average price of online ads, fell 11 percent, but was more than offset by the increase in ad volumes.

Google's ad revenue has been under pressure as consumers access its services on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, whose ad rates are typically lower.

The company's consolidated revenue rose 11 percent to $17.73 billion in the quarter.

Net income rose 17 percent to $3.93 billion, or $4.93 for each Class A and B share, from $3.35 billion, or $4.88 per share.

Excluding one-time items, Google earned $6.99 per share.

Analysts on average had expected a profit of $6.70 per share, and revenue of $17.75 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

(Reporting by Anya George Tharakan in Bengaluru and Yasmeen Abutaleb in San Francisco.; Editing by Simon Jennings and Richard Chang)

Culled from Reuters

Factors that may increase your life in retirement –Odunze Reginald C

Images credited to nordsoc

 According to an article in Yahoo Finance captioned “7 ways to Retire happy” Mandi Woodruff opined that  In a new book, “You Can Retire Sooner Than You Think,” Atlanta-based investment advisor Wes Moss, offers an alternative to the traditional line of thinking. Rather than focus on a dollar amount to reach for, Moss decided to figure out what retirees needed to be truly happy in retirement”
“I wanted to go beyond simple income numbers,” Moss says. “I wondered what it really takes to get somebody to a point where they truly feel they have a cushion and they are also enjoying life.”
“In 2012, Moss conducted an online survey of more than 1,200 workers who had either already retired or were fewer than 10 years away from retirement. He asked them questions about what type of cars they drove, where they shopped, how much their homes were worth, and, of course, how much they had saved for retirement. But he also asked about their passion projects, how often they went on vacation, what types of volunteering they enjoyed, whether or not they were satisfied with their lives, and how much time they put into their retirement planning before calling it quits. (Moss did not ask participants about overall debt levels like student loans and credit cards, but did include questions about their mortgage debt).”
What he found was that more money doesn’t equate to more happiness. The happiest retirees didn’t all drive BMWs or take 12 European cruises a year, either.”

That brings us back to the important idea about what gives happiness, happiness is within, it’s a product of contentment, feel contented about what you have, you will discover that you will be happy, feel otherwise, you will discover that you will be sad, all the days of your life.  As Dolly Paton noted in her song “Coat of many colors”, that she was as rich as she could be in her coat of many colors” and she tries to make to understand” linked to contentment is happy married life.

Good health is very vital in life, retirees should rest, exercise, and diet, what may be termed as RED. It is very essential for people to rest, exercise and diet, so as to be in form , and as one approaches old age , it is also important for retirees to monitor their diet and rest

Being in tune with God, It is good to be in tune with our maker, when you are not tune with your maker, so many things will go wrong including finances, moralities etc. you also lack that self awareness , self will and the ability to adjust to trends in the society to suit your current status and position,

Being in tune with your family It becomes more rewarding, when a retiree is in good relationship with family members especially their wives and children .The more a retiree stay connected to a happy love life, the better for him. In a research carried out in the United States has it that people tend to be happy when they are married than when they are not. And as they say that divorce is more devastating; coupled with the financial implications and the legal battle that comes with it. It went on to say that people are more likely to commit suicide when they are disconnected with their love life or life partner.  But I will also add that men are likely also to commit murder when they are disconnected from their love life and the emotional torture of such act can also drive them to take their own lives.

 In an article in Yahoo Finance captioned “7 ways to Retire happy” Mandi Woodruff observed that “Happy retirees are more likely to be married” As common as divorce is in the U.S. today, the overwhelming majority of happy retirees were married (76%) and only 9% were divorced. Less than half of unhappy retirees were married, while one-quarter were divorced, Wes Moss found. This is right on par with what past research has shown about levels of satisfaction in married and unmarried people — over the long term, married couples are much happier. It’s fairly obvious why two may be better than one in this scenario — dual incomes can make a huge difference in a couple’s financial outlook. On the flip side, divorce not only reduces both parties’ income but is also expensive to go through. 

 

Reasons why your wife may live longer than you- Odunze Reginald C

Image credited to iexpats.com

The pension reform act under section 4 subsection c of the 2004 PRA states that a lump sum to the balance standing to the credit of his retirement savings account: provided that the amount left after that lump sum withdrawal shall be sufficient to procure an annuity or fund programmed withdrawals that will produce an amount not less than 50 per cent of his annual remuneration as at the date of his retirement.

 And in section 7 subsection 1 paragraph a of the PRA 2014 states that withdrawal of a lump sum from the total amount credited to his retirement savings account provided that the amount left after the lump sum withdrawal shall be sufficient to procure a programmed fund withdrawals or annuity for life in accordance with extant guidelines issued by the commission from time to time.

And in arriving at the payment of lump sum to retirees, four factors determine the size of the lump sum, and they are follows: Sex, age, Final salary and RSA balance.

The application that PFAs are using for pension has the principle that women live longer  than men , I do not know how they arrived at that but I do know that there are more widows than widowers in my village. In an article by Forbes, titled 15 Richest women in the world, about 13 of them inherited their wealth from their husbands who are now late. And when I did a pilot with National Population Commission, some years ago we also discovered that there are more widows than widowers, it all means that Chile Application which Pencom is using is indirectly right. Because by either the inductive and deductive analysis in statistical research , analyst have come to that conclusion. But events surrounding women living longer than men as a normal application in social statistics indicates that the social mobility of a woman is a straight line graph and that of a man is an undulating plane. But the hustle of life and the stress of making it in life have come to reduce the life expectancy of men.

But what this indicates is that generally women with the same  bio data , salary structure with a man and retiring at the same time will definitely get a lower lump sum and a lower pension salary than her male colleagues.

According to recent research by Forbes titled 20 richest women in the world, indicates that 75 percent of them inherited their wealth from their deceased husband. But in this research, we are more interested on the factors that account for women living longer than men, so why then do women live longer than men.

Women emotional built up and how they are created-Women are more balanced in life, they are less stressed. Women are emotionally intelligent than men, they can psyche up emotions within the slightest provocation. In fact it has been proved that men are more likely to commit suicide than women, in fact there is unwritten maxim that” it is only a disappointed man that hang himself on a tree,  a disappointed woman do not hang herself on a tree but on the neck of the nearest man”.

Habit: Men are believed to have such habit as drinking , smoking and womanizing, these are harmful habits that reduces somebody’s life expectancy.

The danger of marrying new wives.

The danger of marrying new wives during retirement leads to the following:

Alienates the first wife and set aside the existing will as the law of interstate states that marrying new wife set aside the existing will. It also brings collusion between family members, and at the centre of such issues is the man. There is also the pressure of meeting up with financial and emotional needs of the new partner, and the extreme part is meeting the sexual needs of a teenager wife  have driven most men to a point of taking sexual enhancing drugs, and these drugs increases the risk of high blood pressures , hypertension and even stroke.

In an article in Yahoo Finance captioned “7 ways to Retire happy” Mandi Woodruff observed that “Happy retirees are more likely to be married” As common as divorce is in the U.S. today, the overwhelming majority of happy retirees were married (76%) and only 9% were divorced. Less than half of unhappy retirees were married, while one-quarter were divorced, Wes Moss found. This is right on par with what past research has shown about levels of satisfaction in married and unmarried people — over the long term, married couples are much happier. It’s fairly obvious why two may be better than one in this scenario — dual incomes can make a huge difference in a couple’s financial outlook. On the flip side, divorce not only reduces both parties’ income but is also expensive to go through. 

What it all means that marrying a new wife during can offer a short term happiness to retirees as the pressures and the financial implication of maintaining two families may be devastating to the retiree, it also becomes increasingly difficult if the first wife of the retiree is enlightened as the law of intestate normally set aside the will , when a second marriage is procured. What happens to a situation where the couple has entered a joint mortgage? What will be the plight of the first wife that contributed for that mortgage, what about cases where the man has children and the desire of the second wife to also have offspring of your own. Will the retiree be able to cope coupled with harsh economy realities.

7 Major factors that may increase your life during Retirement -Odunze Reginald C

 Image credited toambafrance.kwt.org

According to Emily Brandon in an article captioned   “8 tips for people who will retire in 2015-Emily Brandon”  “What you decide to do in retirement will have a big impact on your costs and quality of life.  "Certainly you will spend less on gas and don't have to spend as much on work clothes, but some people are also going to spend more money now because they have the time and don't just want to sit around the house," says Craig Schmith, a certified financial planner in Durham, North Carolina. "If you've got pent-up demand to travel, especially internationally, and you haven't had time to do that, you need to think about budgeting that in."

In article captioned  “4 dangerous assumptions that could hurt retirement plan” ,which appeared in Morning star,  Christine Benz noted that  ”Continued portfolio contributions, delayed withdrawals, and delayed Social Security filing can all greatly enhance a retirement portfolio's sustainability. Given those considerations, as well as the ebbing away of pensions, increasing longevity, and the fact that the financial crisis did a number  of setbacks on many pre-retirees' portfolios, it should come as no surprise that older adults are pushing back their planned retirement dates. Whereas just 11% of individuals surveyed in the 1991 Employee Benefit Research Institute's Retirement Confidence Survey said they planned to retire after age 65, that percentage had tripled--to 33%--in the 2014 survey. In 1999, just 5% of EBRI's survey respondents said they planned to never retire, whereas 10% of the 2014 respondents said that”.

Continuing Benz noted that “With that in mind, there appears to be a disconnect between pre-retirees' plans to delay retirement and whether they actually do. While a third of the workers in the 2014 survey said they planned to work past age 65, just 16% of retirees said they had retired post-age 65. And a much larger contingent of retirees--32%--retired between the ages of 60 and 64, even though just 18% of workers said they plan to retire that early. As Morningstar.com assistant site editor Adam Zoll discusses and observed  the following factors, -the variance owes to health considerations (the worker's, his or her spouse's, or parents'), unemployment, or untenable physical demands of the job, among other factors.”

But working longer past that mandatory age of 60 years may be the issues of health etc.

The seven major factors that may affect your retirement are as follows:

1Not saving enough

Almost more than two third Nigerians of working populations do not have a pension account, including the informal sectors, those with various state governments and other categories too many to mention. Also the savings are not enough as people are not keying into voluntary contributions. What they contribute is basically not enough to carry them.

 

2 Investment decision Tom Macphail in 10 costly Pension Mistakes noted that “If you have a pension, have you ever reviewed it? Millions of people haven't. Moreover, recent research revealed more than two in five adults (41%) - 8 million people - cannot remember how their pensions are invested. Why is that alarming? Performance can vary quite dramatically across investments and even a seemingly small difference could have a significant impact on the size of your pot” Continuing he stated that these are just projections. Investments will not always go up in value, they also go down, so you could get back less than you invested; what is certain is that they won't perform as predicted. Also, these values are in today's terms, without considering inflation, which will reduce the spending power of your money over time “According to several researches, people invest for two basic reasons; they are follows, to make provision for old age and to be wealthy. Being wealthy is a function of the state of mind of the owner and the generosity of the individual.

So many people cling to their money as if their life depends on it. While some are willing to give almost half of their possessions but that is not our subject of discussion.

Venita Van Caspel according to schuller noted  while studying investment “heard a very startling statistics of every people reaching age 65, only 2 percent were financially independent” continuing  Schuller op cited opined that Venita was raised in a Christian home without money, which she claims gave a health respect  for a dollar.

From the startling revelation, it all means that many are bound to fail should they kept deaf ear to investment.

What the article is saying is that apart from your pension contribution, you can also embark on one or two investment instruments to protect your age.

And in embarking on investment, it is wise to consult the professionals in that field, these investment advisers, analyst is able to study trends and be able to make informed decisions to that effect.

3 Fraud   Schuller (1988:112) noted that success without social respect can be an ultimate and dismal failure.

Old age has one problem according to psychologist, it tend to make old people vulnerable to issues of money making, as they have dream idea of trying to achieve what they fail to achieve during their working career. They now want to achieve it     during old age and by so doing enter into one wrong investment decision or the other.

Whatever they have not achieve they tend to believe that retirement fund will afford them that opportunity, by so doing they enter into wrong hands who will fleece them of their hard earned money. The result is that most of the retirees return back to work in order to survive and enjoy their old age. But what these scammers do not know is that wealth do not bring happiness as it is stated in Ecclesiastics 5 verse 10-11 “ How absurd to think that wealth brings happiness, the more you have, the more people come to help you spend it and  continuing  in Ecclesiastics 5 verse 12, 14, it sates “ But the rich are always worrying  and seldom get a good night sleep” Riches are sometimes hoarded to the harm of the saver, or they are put into risky investment that turn sour and everything is lost”

And continuing in Ecclesiastics 5 verse 19 and 20, “And it is good thing to receive wealth from God and the good health to enjoy it” “To enjoy your work and accept your lot in life- that is indeed a gift from God, people who did this rarely look with sorrow on the past, for God has given them reason for joy”.

And so in making wealth, it is pertinent for us to have that God given joy that gives one  happiness- a lasting happiness.

Anything short of that may not augur well especially for con artist as Robert Kiyosaki in his book Rich dad Poor dad, noted that there are so many ways, one can be rich, and he included the following, through inheritance, playing lottery, investing or by being a crook or an outlaw but there is a price, you risk going to jail. Kiyosaki  (1995:351) continuing he stated that ‘A great story must interest , excite and cause people to look into the future and dream a little, there should also be integrity behind the story, because our jails are filled with great story tellers without integrity”.

4 Health

The desire of every pensioner is to take care of his or herself during old age, but is it  the  retiree financially stable to shoulder such responsibility , bearing in mind that the period 60 and above comes with various lingering issues including medical health problem.

The medical and health challenge is of varying dimensions, high blood pressure, stroke, obesity, heart attack, cancer of the breast, prostate cancer   that and other medical issues comes with old age.

With the developing state and coupled with the inability of the African governments to have a viable medical programme for old people as prevalent in other continents like Europe, North and South America, Asia , Australia etc. Africa countries with the exception of few African countries like South Africa, Egypt etc have not been able to develop a medical programme for old people and senior citizen. Even where it is said to be existing, there are bottlenecks, corruption and other vices militating against it.

So what do they do in such economy where there are little on non existing medical program for old people, what will the old people do in such a situation, will they resort to the little or no  contribution of their pension pot.

5 Alienating family member – One of the major disaster of retirement is a life of solitary confinement, human being are gregarious, people tend to be happy when they associate with like minds. Even on a cosmetic level, people that value association spends most of their valuable life Face booking and engaging in other social networks, and that has accounted for the increase in social networks channel.

It becomes more rewarding , when a retiree is in good relationship with family members especially their wives and children .The more a retiree stay connected to a happy love life, the better for him. In a research carried out in the United States has it that people tend to be happy when they are married than when they are not. And as they say that divorce is more devastating; coupled with the financial implications and the legal battle that comes with it. It went on to say that people are more likely to commit suicide when they are disconnected with their love life or life partner.  But I will also add that men are likely also to commit murder when they are disconnected from their love life and the emotional torture of such act can also drive them to take their own lives. 

6 Negative attitude

Maintain a positive attitude towards life and pension inclusive; according to book of job what people fear most always comes to them. And according to Robert Schuler, in his book , “the power of positive thinking “ he noted that  one of the basic ingredient of success is maintaining a positive outlook to life, believe that you will make and you will make it, believe that you will not , and you will definitely not”

Therefore maintaining a positive attitude in all aspect of life is pre requisite for all facets of life and Le Boeuf (1987:21) noted that “your world is a mirror and your mind is a magnet what you perceived in this world is largely a reflection of your own attitudes and beliefs. And life will give you what you attract with your thoughts. Think, act and talk negatively and your world will likely be negative. Think, act and talk with enthusiasm and you will attract positive results.

7 Marrying a new wife.

The danger of marrying new wives during retirement leads to the following Alienates the first wife and set aside the existing will as the law of interstate states that marrying new wife set aside the existing will. It will also brings collusion between family members, There is also the pressure of meeting up with financial and emotional needs of the new partner, and the extreme part is meeting the sexual needs of a teenager have driven most men to a point of taking sexual enhancing drugs, and these drugs increases the risk of high blood pressures , hypertension and even stroke.

And according to Eileen Sweeney (1979:31) in her book titled “Another country” Sweeney noted that “marriage was something more rounded than mere infatuation, and once a man had built his home, things were different with him. He must still need his home and would never be the same without it”