Axis Group to invest cautiously amid COVID-19

The Axis Group’s chief investment officer, Nana Wiafe Boamah, says the group will adopt a cautious attitude towards investment amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

“We are going to remain very cautious about the general credit environment and therefore we do not plan to add so much to our credit and corporate bond portfolio,” he said at the annual general meeting and open forum for shareholders in Accra.

The virtual event brought together various stakeholders in the Axis Pension ecosystem, including trustees, scheme members, custodians and representatives of the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA).

The participants were taken through the 2019 audited accounts, the company’s performance and other related issues of respective schemes.

Wiafe Boamah said in line with its desire to protect investor funds, the group had decided to be cautious with what it invests in.

He also encouraged “investors to have a long-term mentality”.

He said the group’s five-year annual growth showed that its performance outperformed that of the 364-day treasury bill in the same period.

Innovation

The chief executive officer of Axis Pensions Group, Afriyie Oware, said due to the pandemic the group had changed its operations.

“COVID-19 has disrupted the way we work and operate and the way we engage with others. And so, as a business, we also need to respond to the changing times,” he said.

He said things that were usually done physically are now being done on digital platforms.

“We are a business that takes investor education seriously. In the past, we met customers face to face at their workplaces in large or small groups, but now we are taking that to digital,” he said.

He said that given the digital-savvy nature of the group, the pandemic had not affected its relationship with customers. The group was rather using the opportunity to engage in financial literacy to help investors to manage their funds even better, Afriyie Oware said.

“In the past, our focus was to provide our customers with the tools and information needed to better equip them for retirement, but now we have introduced an initiative to serve customers amid the outbreak of the pandemic in a better way.”

Afriyie Oware said the company has also set up a financial planning unit to assist customers with financial guidance on how to manage their funds better.

“We are also reviewing our customer journey. We want to shift from physical engagement to digital,” he said.

The Axis Pensions Group is the second-largest private pension administrator in Ghana.

Nana Oye Ankrah

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