NETHERLANDS - Especially good returns of equity in Europe and emerging markets have contributed to a first quarter result of 2.8% of Dutch postal pension fund TNT, the scheme announced.

Equities returned 7% in total. Real estate also performed well, with returns of 6.3%, the €4.2bn scheme said.

Mainly due to falling oil prices during the first quarter, commodities yielded a negative return of 4.3%. A negative return of 2% in fixed income was caused by a half- percentage point rise of interest rates to 3.8%.

“Due to the rise of the market rates, the returns of inflation-linked bonds are minus 4%,” TNT added.

The postal scheme’s coverage ratio - based on market rates has risen by 11.4% to 132%, which is 2% above the long-term target, set by the regulator De Nederlandsche Bank.

Elsewhere, health care fund PGGM is to move its banking communications from its payments banks to SwiftNet.

The migration – PGGM has 1.9m participants and makes approximately 200,000 payments a month - will be supported by Belgian provider Trax.

The €74bn scheme made the decision, after its main payments bank, the Postbank, announced the withdrawal of its services of processing bulk files via cartridges. According to Trax, eight interfaces at six banks in total will be removed from PGGM’s treasury operations, including its two custodian banks, Citibank and ABN Amro Mellon. The three-stage process will take one and a half years.

“PGGM selected Trax Corporate Swift Station to support the migration and to implement new workflows to improve its payment processes. We will automatically correct errors in the payment file, such as a missing Iban or Bic code, before the file advances for authorisation and digital signature,” Trax stated.