Discovery Invest launches the Dollar Discovery Retirement Optimiser

Discovery Invest launches the Dollar Discovery Retirement Optimiser

Discovery Invest announced its new globally-focused retirement product, the Dollar Discovery Retirement Optimiser, which is aimed at building up a retirement nest egg in hard currency.

This innovative investment product is built on the back of Discovery Life’s recently launched Dollar Life Plan. In addition to the allowing clients to save offshore on a recurring monthly basis, the Dollar Retirement Optimiser converts a client’s unused Dollar Life Plan cover into retirement income in US dollars from age 65 onwards, boosting retirement savings in hard currency.

“Clients are looking to offshore assets to diversify their investments and to immunise themselves against the volatility in the rand,” says Craig Sher, Head of Research and Product Development at Discovery Invest.

With the launch of the Dollar Life Plan last year, Discovery Life introduced the first-of-its-kind global insurance product that is designed to match a client’s liabilities that may be offshore. This could include the associated costs of education of children or dependents living overseas.

“Now, with the launch of the Dollar Retirement Optimiser, clients have access to a product that is focused on maximising a client’s retirement savings through fee discounts and boosted fund values in hard currency” says Sher.

The US currency-linked product achieves this through two unique benefits, the Dollar Retirement Investment Integrator and the Dollar Life Plan Optimiser.

The Dollar Retirement Investment Integrator provides discounts on all fees until the age of 65. These discounts start at 20 percent and increase in line with contribution size up to 80 percent. In addition, the Dollar Life Plan Optimiser boosts a client’s income from age 65 by providing tax-free instalments annually over ten years with increases at the US inflation rate each year. These payments are created through converting unneeded risk cover from the client’s Dollar Life Plan into cash.

The product offers three risk-profiled Dollar denominated funds which are built from Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). These are dynamically managed on an ongoing basis to maintain the correct risk profile.

The Dollar Discovery Retirement Optimiser is structured as an offshore endowment policy. Contributions are not tax deductible but no further tax is payable by clients on proceeds from the offshore endowment policy under current tax practice.

Contributions are denominated is US Dollars but deducted from a client’s bank account in South African Rands in line with the rand dollar exchange rate. The product is designed to use client’s single discretionary allowance which is facilitated by Discovery so there is no need to apply for a tax clearance certificate in most cases.