MPF Provider Awards

Awards Categories and Criteria

Trustee Awards

The MPF Trustee Awards recognize that Trustees regulated by the MPFA have demonstrated excellence in discharging their fiduciary duties, creativity, and leadership in the following categories. The firm with the highest score in the respective category will win the Best-in-Class award. Up to two Outstanding Achiever awards will be given to providers within a 5% margin below the Best-in-Class.

The assessment period is from January 1, 2024 to December 31, 2024.

Categories

The “Compliance” category aims to identify best practice MPF Trustees who go beyond the most minimal regulatory requirement and proactively build an effective defense system for internal control that prepares the organization to face unanticipated market events and disruptive trends. The critical criteria in this category include the following. Please explain:

How your firm’s compliance addresses the various business functions:

Process and rationale of integrating compliance into business functions

Segregation between Trustee's and Sponsor's duties and responsibilities

New product due diligence, onboarding, monitoring, and development

Meeting international ESG demand and applying global normative assessment

Product and other training for intermediaries

IT and technology framework, including data collection, data privacy, data processing

the role and responsibility of the CCO

The transparency between the business owners, process owners, and audit the lines of defense
The “Risk Management” category aims to identify best practice MPF Trustees who have best-in-class risk control infrastructures, practices, and outcomes. Please demonstrate your firm’s foresight, vision, and accomplishments on the following:

The submission criteria include qualities below:

Effective appointment, termination, and oversight of Service Providers for services delegated

Explicit policies covering product responsibilities, customer data privacy, customer satisfaction measurement

Integration of risk management into key functions, from the front to the back offices, for greater competitiveness and operational safety and efficiency

Conflict management between outsourced vendors and the Trustee within the same financial group

Employing digital innovation while mitigating concerns derived from cyber-attacks

Protection of data privacy and the vulnerabilities that emerged from automation

Digitization and global expansion of your firm’s digital ecosystems

Governance protocol for decision-making processes
The “Corporate Governance” category aims to identify best practice MPF Trustees with a robust governance framework, infrastructure, and an operating model. The process examines the critical functions of the board’s role, responsibility and compensation, risk culture, people, and talents, processes, and technologies while maintaining a diverse board of directors.

The submission includes the qualities below:

The risk management and culture of your organization

Senior executives’ code of ethics, audit committee independence, Chairman, CEO Board separation, board diversity policy, etc…

The Board Diversity Policy and your firm’s commitment to a diverse board

Relevant committees and their policies and practices

Your firm’s principles for managing both internal and external stakeholders’ interests

Your CRO and CCO’s reporting protocol
This award highlights the responsibilities that MPF trustees, as asset owners, have in helping to shape the world we live in.” This award is given to the Trustees that embrace Responsible Investing and practice Active Ownership and integrate ESG into their ownership policies and practices while driving positive real-world goals.

Apart from illustrating their collaborative engagement initiatives with the underlying investment managers, they prioritize outcomes at the society/economy-wide scales, such as addressing climate change and corruption, rather than purely focusing on pure risks and returns of the holdings in the portfolio.

Judges will be looking for qualities in:

the foundation of the practical stewardship principles and sustainability issues identification

ongoing development and implementation of the responsible investment strategies and policies

monitoring and assessment techniques of the investment managers and investee companies

the collaboration goals and engagement principles with the investment managers

how voting rights are exercised by the investment managers

how ESG is promoted as long-term value creation

level of transparency, disclosure, and reporting

Multiple funds of the underlying investment managers will be drawn randomly from BlueOnion* to demonstrate the walking the talks of the fund houses’ ESG, GC, and Temperature performances against their peers.

*BlueOnion is Benchmark’s disruptive fund research platform hosting over 290,000 funds with sustainability data, including ESG, Global Compact (GC), and Temperature Score in 67 countries.

www.blueonion.today
This Award recognizes an in-house team of an MPF Trustee that has demonstrated achievements in the following Service Levels and achievements:

The submission criteria include qualities below:

Online Support: Whether the provider offers a streamlined onboarding process for new employee enrollment, whether forms are easily accessible, switching of funds is enabled, and the submission process is well organized through website and app access.

Service Pledges: Please describe your service pledge to the employer, describing your service level, charges, administrative undertakings, updates on regulatory changes, etc. Notes will be compared with the MPFA's Trustee Service Comparative Platform.

Communication and Reporting: Whether the portal/statement provides an interactive portfolio overview, performance, and risk figures accompanied by the company’s commentaries and messages, and keeping the employers abreast of new legislation and regulations.

Measuring Success: What are the key indicators used to measure client satisfaction, what mechanisms are used for collecting and measuring end customers’ feedback, what has been the attrition rate, and whether this effort demonstrates impressive growth for assets under administration
This Award recognizes an in-house team of an MPF Trustee that has demonstrated achievements in the following Service Levels and achievements:

The submission criteria include qualities below:

Online Support: Whether the provider offers a streamlined onboarding process for new employee enrollment, whether forms are easily accessible, switching of funds is enabled, and the submission process is well organized through website and app access.

Putting the Members First: Whether the process puts its end customers’ needs first and whether it has a structured approval process to ensure end customers’ satisfaction through tracking and improvements of end-customer satisfaction rates, customer retention rates, response time, and ability to provide accurate, precise and usable information.

Empowerment of Members: Whether there are tools to enable customers to do things themselves and become more engaged in the process – tracking their existing portfolio holdings, researching new investment opportunities, and comparing with other investments outside of the company’s.

Communication and Reporting: The portal/statement provides an interactive portfolio overview, performance, and risk figures accompanied by the company’s commentaries and messages.

Measuring Success: What are the key indicators used to measure client satisfaction, and what are the mechanisms for collecting and measuring end customers’ feedback

ECA Effort: Whether the team and process are robust enough to provide timely service to clients who actively utilize the benefits of ECA to manage their retirement account, and whether there is a mechanism to detect unusual and unethical behavior.

DIS Implementation: What are the proactive initiatives taken to educate the members on the implementation of DIS and whether a fair approach has been taken to inform the members of its pros and cons, and what factors they should consider when contemplating such strategies.
We are looking for a company that adopts best practices in recruiting, managing, and retaining the talent pool to meet the Social responsibilities in the realm of ESG. Companies that care deeply about their employees' health, safety, and wellness and have cultivated a healthy workplace should consider entering this category.

Judges will be looking for qualities in:

Retention: Ability to attract, retain, and develop human capital, as well as the exposure to risks of increased costs associated with high employee turnover or reduced productivity resulting from poor morale.

Engagement: Formal employee engagement channels, broad-based professional development, training opportunities, and implementing flexible work hours.

Benefits: Comprehensive compensation and benefits packages provide annual profit-sharing bonuses, regularly giving employees a substantial and concrete stake in the company’s success. It also offers incentives in short-term activities and benefits aligned to customers’ long-term interests and gifts.

Culture: The company empowers professional and personal growth by demonstrating strong leadership, communication, culture, and corporate social responsibility.

Training and Development: Explicit policies and execution that covers internal promotion, Supplier ESG Training, Career Development Policy, and Average # of training hours

Diversity and Inclusion: Best practice policies to broaden the pool of talent to include all genders, races, and ages.

Awards Categories and Criteria

Sponsor Awards

The MPF Sponsor Awards recognize that MPF Sponsors who have demonstrated excellence in their product designs, fund manager selection, cost structuring, and engagement with the member public in the following categories. The firm with the highest score in the respective category will win the Best-in-Class award. Up to two Outstanding Achiever awards will be given to providers within a 5% margin below the Best-in-Class.

The assessment period is from January 1, 2024 to December 31, 2024.

Categories

For this category, we are looking at the Sponsor's responsibilities over Product quality and safety including the investment due diligence with a comprehensive fund manager selection process, risk management system, and methodologies for screening investment products. Considerations include the reviews of managers' investment process, performance and risks, portfolio management, stewardship, and corporate quality.

The submission includes the following criteria:

Screening Process: A comprehensive risk management system and methodologies used for investment screening. Senior management participation from business units, legal, compliance, risk management, and operations on new product offerings, vetting, and ongoing monitoring.

Product Safety and Quality: The Sponsor has undergone a stringent process to find the best underlying managers that are the least costly, complex, or risky to achieve its objectives.

Monitoring: Whether there is a rigorous governance process to monitor the managers' deterioration in quantitative and qualitative management along their investment process, performance and risks, portfolio management, stewardship, and corporate quality.

Investment/Divestment Process: A clear guideline and action is taken to divest away from an underlying manager whether it is a breach of mandate, underperformance on risk or return thresholds, manager's failure to comply with necessary engagement and disclosure requirement

ESG Integration: Whether there is a process and guideline to examine investment manager's incorporation of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors into investment decisions and its commitment to transparency and constructive engagement with investors.
The ESG Integration Award recognizes investment management companies that demonstrate commitments to integrate ESG into their investment decision-making throughout the investment process for the entire suites of their products, investment activities and reinforces ESG’s role in Long-Term Value Creation.

Judges will be looking for qualities in:

The systematic approach: innovative approaches to applying environmental, social, and governance (ESG) analysis to the funds being managed across the board, despite the sectors, countries, and asset classes

The team buy-in and implementation: how multiple teams come to a consensus for the performance across the board

Disclosure of policies and procedures for integrating ESG information and metrics into the investment process communicated to investee companies

Execution of resources, constraints, and timeline management

The key learnings from this approach measure outcomes

Multiple funds of the underlying managers will be drawn randomly from BlueOnion* to demonstrate the walking the talks of the fund houses’ ESG, GC, and Temperature performances against their peers.

*BlueOnion is Benchmark’s disruptive fund research platform hosting over 290,000 funds with sustainability data, including ESG, Global Compact (GC), and Temperature Score in 67 countries.

www.blueonion.today
The impact initiatives measure the MPF's sponsor selection of underlying managers' ability or index to create positive social or/and environmental value. They also have material exposure to businesses that address social or/and environmental challenges through their products and services. It should also prove that their investments are aligned with one or more UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

Key metrics include:

your competitive proposition in the impact investment space

the substantial impact, both negative and positive, and/or the progress towards achieving those goals

the scale of the investments vs. the impact terms created

how the impact contributes to society/economy-wide solutions

the uniqueness of the project that was set out to solve issues not addressed before the

buy-ins of all stakeholders with clearly defined KPIs

Awards Categories and Criteria

Investment Manager Awards

The Investment Manager Awards is designed to recognize underlying managers of MPF Schemes in various asset classes and strategies for delivering sustained, consistent outperformance on a risk-adjusted basis while maintaining excellence in Benchmark's pillars. Benchmark and the buy-side community believe that investment strategies are best evaluated holistically rather than over-emphasizing past returns and risk metrics. In that light, our assessment is based on multiple facets of portfolio and risk management, and corporate strength. We see these facets as interlocking pieces forming a whole picture. Benchmark's five pillars are Investment Approach, Performance & Risk, Portfolio Management, Stewardship, and Corporate Quality.

Methodology

Although this program assesses investment strategies rather than funds, we request factsheets and other information related to the oldest share class of a flagship fund so that the same metrics can evaluate all candidates. The strategy must:

✓ Have a minimum 3-year track record
✓ Have an ISIN code
✓ Must provide a prospectus or fact sheet

You can submit more than one fund to each category by entering the fund into a separate entry. The strategies presented do not require authorization of funds in the jurisdiction of competition. It can be a UCITS, SICAV, etc..…

The assessment period is from January 1, 2024 to December 31, 2024.
The strategy with the highest final score in its peer group wins the Best-in-Class award. Up to two Outstanding Achiever awards will be given to Strategies within a 5% margin below the Best-in-Class
3 Steps to the Title:

Step 1 – Decide which investment strategies you would like to pursue.

Step 2 – Fill out the Multiple-Choice Questionnaire for each entered category. Due to the increasing number of entries each year, we can no longer offer each fund an opportunity to the Gatekeeper Forum. To present the best candidates to the judges, those who have met the qualifying threshold will be shortlisted to enter the Gatekeeper Forum. These shortlisted candidates are selected based on the quality of the answers provided in the questionnaire.

Step 3 – Attend the Gatekeeper Forum, where judges will rate their interviews with the PM/CIO based on the specified criteria for each type of award. This is a subjective process, and the judges will be provided with the submissions, as well as the independent financial performance reporting from Morningstar and the sustainability performance from BlueOnion. The forum is highly curated, and only the PM, CIO, or Product Specialists are invited to meet the Senior Gatekeepers in person. During the 30-minute session, 3-5 jurors will ask in-depth questions along the five critical pillars to gain a deeper understanding of team practices. Jurors assigned to a particular peer group will score based on their experience with the fund house and team, as well as the evidence presented.
Submitting Materials for Multiple Regions

If you are entering the same category for more than one region, you may use the same information, documents, and flagship fund across all the areas. For example, you've entered your global fixed-income strategy for Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. You may use the same information for all three regions. You would still need to complete the submission for each area separately. Submit all the answers and documents for the first region, then input the related submission ID for the other areas.

Submitting Materials for Multiple Strategies

Separate groups of jurors will evaluate different product types, so please make sure there is one submission per strategy. Please submit separate entries for each strategy, except Pillar 5-Corporate Strength (only need to submit this once for all entries). DO NOT send one request to represent different strategies.

Merging Categories

To ensure the quality of the awards, categories with less than three funds participating may be incorporated into a larger category of the same kind without prior notice.