South Africa’s retirement industry has built a system of considerable scale, expertise and sophistication. Over time, governance has strengthened, regulation has evolved, and the industry has continued to develop new approaches to retirement saving. Yet the strength of the institutions within the system cannot, on its own, tell us whether the system is on a sustainable path.

This was one of the central questions explored at EPPF’s Beyond Tomorrow Business Breakfast, held on 17 September 2026 under the theme The Retirement Industry at a Crossroads. The event brought together leaders and voices from across the retirement industry to examine the choices facing the sector and to consider what needs to change if South Africa is to build a retirement system capable of serving future generations.

The discussion highlighted an important tension. South Africa has much to be proud of in the development of its retirement industry, but significant gaps remain. Too many people are still outside the formal retirement system, while many of those who participate contribute too little or for too short a period to accumulate sufficient savings. Financial pressures during working life can also result in retirement savings being accessed when circumstances leave people with few alternatives.

At the same time, individuals are increasingly exposed to investment, inflation and longevity risks. Navigating these risks requires more than access to a retirement fund. It requires people to understand the decisions available to them and to have appropriate guidance throughout their working lives. These challenges point to a broader question about what we mean when we describe a retirement system as successful.

Looking beyond the strength of the system

The conversations at Beyond Tomorrow covered many of the issues that shape the future of retirement in South Africa, including adequacy, preservation, portability, governance, value for money, retirement income and sustainability.

Behind the policy discussions and institutional structures are people making long-term decisions about their financial futures. A monthly contribution represents a commitment made today in anticipation of a future that may be decades away. A retirement balance represents years of saving and the expectation that those savings will provide an income later in life. And when savings are accessed prematurely, it can reflect financial circumstances that make long-term planning particularly difficult.

This is what gives the retirement industry its wider significance. Retirement saving is fundamentally built on trust: trust that contributions will be managed responsibly, that institutions will fulfil their obligations and that the system will continue to evolve as the nature of work and the needs of society change. A sustainable system must therefore do more than function effectively at an institutional level. It must remain relevant to the realities of people's working lives and provide a credible foundation for financial security in later life.

Imagining South Africa’s retirement system in 2050

With that in mind, Beyond Tomorrow looked beyond the immediate challenges to consider what South Africa’s retirement system could look like by 2050. The world of work is changing rapidly. People are moving between employers and industries, combining different forms of employment and increasingly participating in self-employment, informal work and platform economies. A retirement system designed primarily around a traditional, uninterrupted career is unlikely to remain sufficient.

The system of the future should allow savings to remain connected to individuals as their working lives change. Moving between employers or forms of employment should not unnecessarily disrupt long-term retirement planning, while preservation and consolidation should become easier to navigate. There is also an opportunity to make retirement information considerably more useful. People should be able to understand, in straightforward terms, what their current savings could mean for their future income and what decisions they can make during their working lives to improve their position. Guidance should begin when people enter the retirement system rather than becoming relevant only as retirement approaches.

Technology will have an important role to play in making this possible. Artificial intelligence and other digital tools could help extend personalised guidance to a much wider population, particularly where traditional advice models are difficult to scale. But technology should operate within a framework that retains human judgement, accountability and empathy. The industry will also need to continue examining how scale can create greater value. Larger pools of capital can create opportunities to improve efficiency, strengthen governance and reduce costs, but scale should ultimately be judged by what it enables the system to deliver rather than by size alone.

The ambition is to create a retirement system in which every working South African can access a trusted, portable and affordable framework for saving throughout their working life, regardless of how or where they work.

Turning a long-term vision into practical work

A vision for 2050 can be ambitious without being unrealistic, but only if there is a clear path between the long-term aspiration and the decisions being made today.

That is why the Beyond Tomorrow conversation is intended to continue beyond the event through a structured programme of Principal Officer roundtables and industry workgroups. The aim is to bring together the expertise and perspectives required to work through the complex issues facing the sector, including retirement funds, policymakers, regulators, administrators, employers, organised labour, advisers, investment managers, insurers, academics, technology providers and member representatives.

The programme will focus on the factors that will determine the future shape of the retirement system: coverage, contributions and adequacy; preservation, portability and consolidation; future fund design and retirement income; governance and structural consolidation; costs, value for money and market conduct; lifelong guidance and financial resilience; and the data needed to understand progress and sustainability.

These areas are closely connected. Improving adequacy, for example, is not simply a question of contribution rates. It is also influenced by how long people remain in the system, whether they preserve their savings when changing jobs and whether the system is accessible to those whose working lives do not follow traditional employment patterns.

Similarly, questions about costs cannot be separated from questions about value, while innovation needs to be accompanied by appropriate governance. Better policy and industry decisions will also depend on better information about what is actually happening across the system.

A shared responsibility for the future

No single retirement fund, regulator, administrator, employer or government institution can shape the retirement system South Africa will need by 2050. The scale and complexity of the challenge require sustained cooperation across the sector.

That does not mean there will always be agreement on the best approach. Different institutions will bring different responsibilities, perspectives and priorities to the discussion. What matters is creating a constructive process through which those differences can be explored and practical areas of common ground identified.

The industry already has considerable depth of experience and expertise. The opportunity now is to bring that capability together with greater purpose, creating a sustained programme of engagement that can move beyond individual reforms towards a more integrated view of the future.

If the work succeeds, the significance of this period may extend well beyond the discussions that took place at the Beyond Tomorrow Business Breakfast. It could mark a point at which the industry began to think more deliberately about the retirement system required for a changing economy and a changing workforce.

EPPF’s task is not to predict 2050 perfectly. It is to begin shaping it responsibly.