If there's a controversial egg in the Professional Provident Society of South Africa's (PPS) basket, it is the society's retirement annuity pension fund which is underwritten and partially managed by Sanlam.
Andrew Bradley, a director at Fincorp, says the fund is essentially a Sanlam retirement annuity with a PPS wrapper around it. It comes with the normal upfront costs and commissions.
"If one considers that one of the major advantages of PPS is that members don't pay commission, the retirement annuity is an exception."
Bradley says the result is that the selling point of PPS membership is often the retirement annuity, because this is the only area where the broker can earn commission.
He says the reason why the other PPS products are not more widely sold is that they do not earn commission.
Only Sanlam accredited consultants may sell PPS products. Many of them will say that Sanlam can move the annuity to greener pastures if it does not perform adequately.
But Bradley says this is very much a theoretical statement.
For while Sanlam annuities have shown average performance, they certainly have not been the market leaders or top performers.
The PPS philosophy of maximum benefit to members should also apply to the annuity.
Yet, with the annuity fund being the only commission-earning product on offer and with the Sanlam link, it could be argued that members are not reaping maximum benefits with this investment.