FINLAND - The Finnish ministry of social affairs and health is drafting a new set of regulations for the country's pensions sector and will publish a timetable of the reform process later in April, IPE has learnt.

In January, Erkki Rajaniemi, ministerial counsellor for legal affairs at the ministry, reported on the shortcomings of the existing regulatory system and emphasised the need to facilitate competition between company pension funds and pension companies.

After consultations with the industry, the ministry is now drafting a new set of regulations and a timetable for implementing them.

Rajaniemi told IPE that he had made a number of specific recommendations that seek to improve competition in the market. "We found that the existing regulations treated pension funds differently from pension companies, and we tried to address these inequalities," he said.

"My report recommended changing the rules for the transfer of assets between pension institutions. I proposed that the time-limit on transferring assets should be reduced from five years to two and that the rule, according to which assets can be transferred from a company to a fund only for a minimum of 50 employees, should be abolished."

He also called for better transparency in the market and said that the new regulations should make it easier for investors to compare the financial figures of different pension institutions. He also proposed tax relief to encourage investment in real estate and said that the ministry should monitor the effect of legislation on the competitiveness of the market.

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