LUXEMBOURG- Crédit Européen, the bank belonging ING Group’s BBL, has become the second company to take advantage of the Luxembourg legislation allowing insurance-based pension funds by setting up a scheme for its 900 employees.

A spokesman at the bank says they have the go ahead and the fund is legally operational although the precise investment strategy is as yet unspecified. He says the active part of the fund will be managed in house while Esofac will run the passive element. PricewaterhouseCoopers advised Credit Europeen on the launch.

Initial funds are coming from the bank’s reserves and athough the fund is modest- it will be e4m by the end of the year- it is only the second to get approval for the government’s insurance based pensions vehicle.

Last January the ministry of finance granted the tyre maker Goodyear a licence to launch the country’s first insurance-based pension fund.

Claude Wirion at the Commissariat aux Assurance (CAA), Luxembourg’s insurance regulators and the organisation that prepares the applications, says the Commissariat has a number of further applications in the pipeline.

Progress of Insurance-based pension funds has lagged that of the ASSEP and SEPCAV largely because the CAA secured a grand Ducal decree about a year after the others were made available in 1999.




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