Latest analysis – Page 50
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Opinion PiecesIORP governance
Suggestions to make the basis for a systematic set of codified rules to cover the governance of occupational pension schemes across the entire EU have emerged from a working group of pension stakeholders.
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Opinion PiecesRetirement on course
Five years after the Lehman collapse, Americans’ retirement savings look like they have overcome the shock and are growing steadily. In fact they’ve reached the record amount of $20.8trn (€15.7trn) according to the latest data published by the Investment Company Institute (ICI), the national association of US investment companies.
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Features
Insurers deal with low yields
Writing from an equity research perspective, John Hocking outlines an approach to re-risking that could benefit insurers both with Solvency II and in the eyes of rating agencies
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Features
End to the first act
Six years since the idea was first raised, the European Commission has finally drawn a curtain on its proposal to apply rigid risk-based solvency requirements – pillar one of Solvency II – on occupational pension funds in IORP II. At least for now, since Michel Barnier, the commissioner for the single market, has made it clear that this is a postponement, not a policy abandonment.
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Features
Directing the directive
Cécile Sourbès asks Matti Leppälä, secretary-general and chief executive of PensionsEurope, to discuss the next steps for the revised IORP Directive
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Features
Attention moves to portability
Eight years have passed since the European Commission introduced its first proposals on a Pension Portability Directive, and yet, so far, there has been no sign of this coming to fruition. Back in 2005, it introduced a proposal for a directive aiming to improve the portability of supplementary pension rights.
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Opinion Pieces
Happy in the hot seat
Jeremy Woolfe asks Gabriel Bernardino, the chairman of the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, about the challenges he faces stuck in the crossfire of the conflicting interests of the European pensions industry
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AnalysisNews analysis: Institutional investors size up UK housing
As institutionals assess an evolving market, government incentives increase the risk of a bubble.
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Features
Motherhood and apple pie
Perhaps it should not be a too much of a surprise that 68% of Swiss people voted in a national referendum in March in favour of a motion against ‘rip-off’ executive salaries.
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Opinion Pieces
A long-term dream
Philippe Maystadt, former Belgian finance minister and European Investment Bank (EIB) president, recently fleshed out the European Commission’s policy paper to promote long-term investment.
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Opinion Pieces
Fink’s nod to Australia
Are mandatory saving accounts coming to the US? It looks possible after BlackRock chairman and CEO, Laurence Fink, said they should be part of a comprehensive solution to the retirement funding crisis.
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Features
Two sides of the longevity balance sheet
For Peter Drucker, writing in the Harvard Business Review in 1997, demographics were “the future that has already happened”.
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Features
Surviving in a fat-tail world
According to Nassim Taleb, we are living in a fat-tail world where extreme events are common, while our ability to predict them is nil. Mariska van der Westen asked him how pension funds can survive in such an environment
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Features
Is Antifragile applicable to pensions?
Conrad Holmboe and Patrick O’Sullivan apply Taleb’s ‘antifragile’ idea to the pension fund world
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Opinion Pieces
The growth agenda
The European Commission’s green paper, Long-term Financing of the European Economy, is a rarity– it gets applause from all quarters.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from the US: Retirement concerns
“Our priority is to be sure that Americans save enough for retirement,” explains CEO and executive director of the American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries (ASPPA), Brian Graff. The problem is that Americans are not saving enough, because of the way pension plans are offered and structured, and because of the economic situation.
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Opinion Pieces
Step-change for DC
“Our retirement philosophy is changing the industry”. So says Glenn Dial, head of retirement for Allianz Global Investors (AGI). Dial has been in charge of this business in the US since February 2011, focusing on a target-date strategy that is reinforced by the findings from AGI’s Centre for Behavioural Finance.
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Features
Scrutiny: it’s here to stay
If you were to organise a people’s initiative against being ripped off, you might be guaranteed some measure of success. The fact that the people allegedly doing the ripping off are highly-paid executives makes the issue all the more piquant.
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Opinion Pieces
Anti-SII bloc victory?
The bloc of EU member states opposed to the inclusion of Solvency II-inspired provisions in the planned IORP II Directive, appear to be on the road to victory.
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Features
Not too hot, not too cold
“The Union has today set itself a new strategic goal for the next decade: to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion.”
