Pretoria: The Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) has moved to clarify the implementation of revised actuarial interest factors, which are used to calculate members’ benefits.
According to South African Government News Agency, the GEPF implemented updated actuarial interest factors with effect from 1 October 2025. The factors are derived from the assumptions adopted in the Fund’s recent statutory actuarial valuation as at 31 March 2024. The implementation of the revised factors follows the completion of a consultative process with employee organisations as at 31 July 2025, as required by the GEP Law and Rules.
On 1 September 2025, the fund issued a notice that it would implement updated actuarial interest factors with effect from 1 October 2025. Actuarial interest factors are used when the fund must express a member’s earned future pension as a present-day lump-sum Rand amount. At that time, the fund said failure to implement the revised factors would result in exiting members being paid more than their fair share of the fund’s assets, thereby disadvantaging members who remain in the fund and ultimately those who retire within the fund.
In Saturday’s statement, the GEPF said the revised factors result in actuarial interest values that are on average 15% lower than those that would result from the 2021 factors. It further added that the extent to which individual members’ actuarial interest will differ between the 2021 and 2024 factors depends on their age and category (i.e., whether they are service members or not).
The revised factors will be applied across all active member records, meaning the balances reflected in all components or pots will be recalculated on the updated basis. Exit benefits, apart from retirements, whether members leave with less than 10 years of total pensionable service, will be affected. All resignations, irrespective of service, will be affected. Pensioners’ benefits are not affected by these revised factors.
The fund appealed to members to consult GEPF official channels for a more in-depth understanding of the topic, such as the GEPF website, YouTube channel, as well as GEPF social media platforms on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Earlier in the week, the fund announced the temporary suspension of submission of savings withdrawal applications with regards to the 2-pot withdrawals. The Government Employees Pension Fund wishes to inform its members that the submission of savings withdrawal applications will be temporarily suspended from 7 October to 21 October 2025. This pause is necessary to allow the Fund to update its systems with the recently implemented actuarial factors used to calculate members’ benefits.
During this time, members will not be able to submit new savings withdrawal applications through the self-service platforms. However, all other benefit payments and services will continue as normal.
The GEPF sincerely apologises for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciates members’ patience and understanding as we complete these important updates. The savings withdrawal functionality will be reinstated on 22 October 2025, once the updates have been successfully completed.