Rundown on MPF providers
William M Mercer, the world's largest employee-benefit consulting firm, has introduced its own Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) monitoring and evaluation service to help people review the performance of their MPF providers.
The service comes in two levels: basic and premium.
The basic service offers a quarterly newsletter and market survey, including investment performance comparisons for each MPF provider under different fund categories.
Performance figures will be provided for the most recent quarter and include absolute returns, risk-adjusted returns and volatility of returns.
Also included in the basic service is news on MPF providers and general MPF news.
The service features organisational and staff changes at the providers as well.
Mercer also will analyse why providers are underperforming and explain the risks in the portfolios relative to the funds' stated benchmarks.
Premium customers can review and discuss results with a Mercer investment consultant and seek advice from him.
The monitoring and evaluation service is aimed at helping customers assess the performance of their MPF providers and decide whether they need to change providers.
The company also provides a similar service for Orso schemes, with its most recent report detailing the struggles of Orso funds last year.
The report displayed a wide disparity in returns, with the best-performing fund manager achieving a positive return of 0.6 per cent at the end of September and the worst-performing manager producing a negative return of 21.2 per cent during the same period.
