The International Organisation of Pension Supervisors is to circulate a newly approved set of principles for pension supervision.
The IOPS governing membership approved the ‘Principles of Private Pension Supervision’ - covering the independence of the supervisory authority, the necessity for adequate resources and powers, risk-orientation, transparency and governance - at its first annual meeting in Paris in December. “These principles will be circulated for consultation during 2006,” IOPS said.
On IOPS’s agenda for 2006 is a project on risk-based pension supervision, led by the World Bank, a report on cross-border pension supervision, the development of guidance for the use of IT in off-site supervision and a project on the licensing of pension funds and plans, jointly with the OECD.
The next IOPS committee meetings will be held in Chile in March, following a joint OECD/ IOPS private pensions conference covering reform of the Chilean system.
John Ashcroft of the UK’s Pensions Regulator was re-elected IOPS president. Guillermo Larrain, of Chile’s Superintendencia de Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones, was elected as vice-president.
Ashcroft said: “Now that IOPS is fully functioning I hope that we can... provide supervisors, and those countries who are just starting on the private pensions path, with the help they need.”