With Barbados’ retirement age set to increase twice over the next six years and lingering uncertainty over the viability of the National Insurance and Social Security Service (NISSS), Barbadians are being advised to secure their financial future via other means.
Investment was the topic on Starcom Network’s Sunday Brass Tacks radio call-in programme yesterday and chief executive officer of Fortress Fund Managers, Peter Arender, told potential investors to look at it like a meal, with the NISSS being a part of it.
“But there are other elements to the financial security that you’re hoping to build. The other elements would be things like private pension plans, private investments and things like mutual funds or shares. Whether or not the NISSS continues to build and grow in the ways that it needs to support its current promises, I don’t know that anybody knows, but we can see the direction of travel in the last several years, and it hasn’t been towards earlier retirement ages and bigger benefits,” he said. “It’s been in the other direction.
“So I think all the more it underlines the need for us all as individuals and as companies to help employees do better on the personal side so that at the end or along the way, we get a good rounded meal as opposed to overly relying on one thing.”
Won’t join
Arender said there were people who opted not to join a company’s pension plan, but were essentially “leaving money on the floor” that they could have for their future.
Barbados’ age of retirement, which is now 67 years, is set to increase to 67.5 in 2028 and 68 by 2034.
Michael Jordan, executive director of JMMB Barbados which also offers similar services, advised potential investors to engage a broker. He said people first had to determine the objectives – whether it was short or long term, for themselves or descendants, and not just the willingness to take a risk, but the ability to do so. This would be done after ensuring they were able to meet their financial obligations like housing, food, utilities and so on, and then looking at how much disposable income they were willing to invest, he added. (SAT)
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