Germany’s private pension reform is prompting asset managers to strengthen staffing and establish dedicated teams ahead of the transition to the new system in January next year.
Fidelity International has recruited additional staff in technical infrastructure, product design and product operations to ensure “the continuous further development of its entire offering” relating to the retirement savings account (Altersvorsorgedepot), Oliver Dreiskämper, head of proposition management at FIL Fondsbank (FFB), the bank of Fidelity International, told IPE.
Specifically, 14 new positions were created in 2026, while FFB has also significantly expanded its workforce in support functions such as IT, Dreiskämper added.
“We have established a dedicated unit for the third pillar [private pensions], with the core mission of designing the Altersvorsorgedepot and developing further products for this segment,” he added.
From next year, Fidelity and its affiliate FFB will offer a retirement savings account (Altersvorsorgedepot), including a premium product consisting of active ETFs and a complementary standard product with cost-efficient passive index funds.
Other asset managers are reshaping their internal structures to offer products by the beginning of 2027, when the private pension reform approved in March will enter into force.
Consultancies Sirius Campus and Aeforia estimate that 4.5 million retirement savings accounts will be opened during the initial rollout in 2027, with €65bn of capital from existing private Riester-Rente contracts flowing into the new accounts.
Private pensions are therefore currently “one of the top priorities in the retail area” in Germany for JP Morgan Asset Management, said managing director Jakob Tanzmeister.
“We have established a competence team including multiple colleagues in Frankfurt, London, and in the US,” he said.
The team brings together expertise from the US with empirical know-how and research.
“It includes our product management teams, our ETF team, our product strategy and development team, the legal department, our marketing and sales force teams and our market insights experts focusing on capital markets knowledge and financial literacy for the German retail clients,” Tanzmeister explained.
JP Morgan AM started working with distribution partners and on product development last year to launch a premium product for the Altersvorsorgedepot based on active ETFs and its Smart Retirement lifecycle approach, enabling savers to invest in capital markets.
“We think the reform of the third pillar is a huge opportunity for savers to access the capital market, with good, simple and cost-efficient products,” Tanzmeister said.
Retirement savings accounts also offer savers the opportunity to allocate savings to private markets through European Long-Term Investment Funds (ELTIFs), “a super exciting story” for individuals investing over the long-term horizon while liquidity is not a primary concern, he continued.
Björn Deyer, head of pensions at DWS, said the upcoming private pension reform and the introduction of the retirement savings account from 1 January 2027, ”confront the financial industry with one of the most complex regulatory and operational transitions of recent decades”.
To meet this challenge, DWS has established a dedicated interdisciplinary project team. The scope of the new retirement savings account precludes reliance on standard day-to-day business processes, Deyer said.
“Consequently, DWS is strategically pooling core competencies from a wide range of areas within this team,” he added.
