Deloitte’s Netherlands office is to place its pension arrangements with Cappital, the new defined contribution (DC) vehicle from TKP and insurer Aegon. 

The accountacy and consultancy firm cited the lower investment costs as the main reason for the transition, writing on a website for its staff.

Since 2001, the €860m Deloitte defined contribbution (DC) scheme has seen its investments managed by Dutch manager Robeco, who will see the assets transferred to Cappital, Deloitte said.

At the end of 2013, the Pensioenfonds Deloitte had 16,300 participants, of whom 4,300 were workers and 1,570 pensioners.

In other news, supervisor De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) reported Dutch mortgages funds had almost doubled in size to €6.7bn last year.

This reflected a wider trend of Dutch pension funds replacing government bonds in part with mortgages.

Last September, the €58bn metal scheme PMT invested €1bn in mortgages through the Dutch Mortgage Funding Company (DMFCO).

At the same time, the €19bn scheme for the printing industry PGB and the €7bn scheme of steelworks Hoogovens invested €500m each through DMFCO, which said it expected to issue €3bn in mortgages within 18 months.

Aegon and Syntrus Achmea have estimated that their mortgages funds would hold €6bn in combined mortgage investments by the end of last year.

Finally, the €2bn Dutch scheme for Dow Chemical said it has replaced its final salary pension plan with an average salary arrangement.

Manager of Dow Chemical’s pensions burear, Caroline van Eecke, said: “Following the decrease of the tax-facilitated pension accrual, sticking with the final salary scheme would have meant an accrual drop of at least 13%.”

The allowed tax-free accrual for final salary plans has been reduced from 1.9% to 1.657% with the annual accrual under the new average salary arrangements set at 1.875%, she added.

Since 1 January 2014, the Dow Pensioenfonds has been closed to new entrants. New employees accrue pension rights in the new low cost ppi vehicle of asset manager Robeco.