NETHERLANDS - Pensions provider Syntrus Achmea has adopted the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS) certification, starting at the beginning of this year.

The certification - which helps prospective clients to compare asset managers’ investment performance - will apply retrospectively for the Dutch provider to 1 January 2006, it said.

The GIPS - issued by the CFA Institute of the Global Association of Investment Professionals - guarantees institutional clients that returns on investments are transparent and uniformly accounted and reported.

PricewaterhouseCoopers verified Syntrus Achmea’s GIPS compliance.

The pensions provider also said it was deploying Koster Engineering’s Performing Analysis and Reporting System (PARS) for accounting returns.

Rogier Krens, director of asset management at Syntrus Achmea, said: “Pension funds need proper and comparable information to choose investors.

“It was our deliberate choice to offer the GIPS data for all our investments, as well as retrospectively to 2006.”

Syntrus Achmea is pension provider for 3.5m employees and pensioners with more than 80 pensions funds.

The company has €52bn in assets under management.