The 11th Annual FISA Conference – Save the date! 17 November 2021

The Fiduciary Institute of Southern Africa (FISA) is well known to professionals in various fields, including fiduciary practitioners, financial planners, accountants and lawyers.

We caught up with FISA CEO Louis van Vuren to find out about the upcoming 11^th Annual FISA Conference which has been held at the Sandton Convention Centre over the past few years. This year’s conference takes place at the same venue on 17 November 2021.

Q:        Are you able to hold an in-person conference this year, Louis?

A:        Attendance at the venue will be limited to the number of people allowed to gather indoors at the time of the conference and by the number the venue can manage, bearing in mind distancing requirements. Registrations for attendance at the Sandton Convention Centre will be determined on a first-come-first-served basis determined by the date of registration.

Q:        What about those unable to attend in person?

A:         There will be no live streaming of the event on the day this year, but a full recording will be available approximately one week later on Asset TV. The same number of CPD points will be awarded, provided that those who watch the recordings will have to complete a short quiz at the end of each session.

Q:        Tell us a bit about the history of the conference? It seems to have become a key event on the industry calendar.

I think the reason for its popularity is that we manage to combine the theoretical with the practical, in other words the conference content is at the intersection of academic thinking and what professionals are doing in practice. This way, each learns from the other. The conference started off in a modest fashion 11 years ago as a small, purely academic gathering but then gained momentum to grow into a major event held in the one of the country’s largest convention centres.

Q:        FISA usually chooses a theme around which to structure the presentation. What is the theme for this year?

A:         The theme is “Enduring fiduciary relationships”. By analogy, this implies that an association with a professional fiduciary practitioner relationship should by its very nature be long-term. Also that both parties have to ‘endure’, in other words ‘go through and commit’. One of the hot topics in the industry is enduring powers of attorney and other end-of-life directives. At present, a power of attorney is only valid if the person extending the power is of a sound mind when instructing the holder of the power of attorney.

A:         Who are the speakers?

Q:        Confirmed speakers so far include:

• Dr Janet Minnaar of ProEthics, talking on “Building lasting relationships based on trust”.
• Dr James Faber of the University of the Free State talking on “The Living Will – managing relationships around end-of-life directions and decisions”.
• Ms Lelane Bezuidenhout, CEO of the Financial Planning Institute, talking on “The estate planner’s relationship with the client”.
• Mr Chris Murphy of Legacy Fiduciary Services, on the relationships between an executor and the deceased’s family.