Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 528
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Features
Consultants refocus agenda
The law on occupational pensions in Belgium and the European pension fund directive both have a major impact on the management of occupational pensions, says Jos Verlinden of M&P Consult. “Although the directive in itself does not bring a revolution to pension funds in Belgium, the supervisory authority has drafted ...
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Features
Making virtue of necessity
After the Second World War, Belgium developed a broad social security system that differentiated between different kinds of profession. Different schemes were set up for employees, the self-employed and civil servants. The decree of 28 December 1944 provided the populace with legally regulated and guaranteed protection, funded by contributions from ...
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Features
A guarantee of limitations
Last month one of the most famous monuments in Belgium and star of the 1958 World Expo - the Atomium - re-opened after more than a year of renovation work. Newly gleaming in the crisp winter sunshine, this remarkable structure of giant interconnected mirrored spheres presents an enduring – though ...
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Features
Allocation helps double returns
The median Belgian pension fund posted a return of +16.9% over the year 2005, according to Mercer’s Pension Investment Performance Service (PIPS) survey. This figure exceeds the averasge return posted by Belgian Association of Pension Funds of 15.1%. This excellent result is attributable to the strong performance of equity markets. ...
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Features
Reformed character
In terms of geographical size and population, Belgium is one of the Euro-zones’s smaller member states, However back in the early 1990s Belgium was in the ignominious position of having one of Europe’s largest debt burdens. The financial figures at that time were especially grim: Belgian national debt as a ...
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Features
The 'generation pact' policy
Considering the expected demographic developments in Belgium, the level of employment in is too low, as a result of which the social security scheme being based on repartition (active people finance the social security system on behalf of inactive people) will come under pressure. In order to safeguard the Belgian ...
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Features
Among the EU's 'bad' citizens
The IORP directive, while calling for more transparency in pension matters, could hardly be regarded as an example of transparency itself. Clarity and transparency are indeed probably the most missed items in the directive. Therefore, the correct transposition into national laws is not always a foregone conclusions. The directive should ...
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Features
How to keep in the swim
With defined benefit and defined contribution pension funds totalling around €13bn, Belgium is a minnow compared to its neighbour the Netherlands. However, its status as a Euronext market and as a member of Euroclear Group mean it is not left on the sidelines by securities services players. Renaud Vandenplas, location ...
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Features
Revolution for self-employed
In common with many European countries, Belgium’s public pension schemes are PAYG; also in common with other European countries, future demographic projections show clearly that these schemes will come under huge financial pressures. A recent report of the OECD hghlighted the effects of longevity as the major challenge for Belgium’s ...
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Features
New ways of looking at risk
John Maynard Keynes wrote in 1924 that, “in the long run, we are all dead”. Existential concerns of a rather more pressing nature afflict pension funds in the Europe and the US as they wrestle with a combined shortfall of more than $600bn (€504bn). The ‘perfect storm’ of falling equity ...
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Features
Shareholders become active
Ever since the financial scandals of Enron and WorldCom that rocked the US, and more recently Parmalat in Europe, there has been a growing awareness among fund managers that they should be more actively involved in the running of the companies that they invest in. On 10 January, the European ...
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Features
In praise of risk
“I love risk. I like it because it produces returns for me”, said ABP chief investment officer Roderick Munsters at the 5th annual Institutional Fund Management conference in Geneva. Munsters was one of several industry heavyweights expressing views on the current and potential future challenges facing the pension fund, investment ...
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Features
Schemes warned of 'herd mentality'
European pension funds have been warned about a possible “herd mentality” developing in hedge funds. “There appear to be a lot of pension funds in Europe going into hedge funds because everybody else is,” said Penny Green, chief executive of the Superannuation Arrangements of the University of London. She told ...
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Features
Why evaluated pricing is next
Valuing a bond portfolio is often regarded as a straightforward exercise of obtaining the latest market prices from a group of market makers or an exchange, completely analogous to the equity marketplace. The vast majority of bonds do not trade on a day-to-day basis and, traded over-the-counter, there is a ...
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Features
For your Euro watch-list
In Brussels-speak, a directive is a decision by the EU. It has to be implemented in national law. The Institutions of Retirement Provision (IORP) directive creates pan-European pension funds. It should have been implemented on 23 September 2005, but towards the end of 2005, less than half of the EU ...
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Features
Conflicting priorities
In Hungary, as in many countries, the task of financing the state pension system is a growing problem. As market economics took hold in Hungary at the beginning of the 1990s, the real value of pensions fell away. This in turn made it clear that additional, private, funded pension provision ...
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Features
State Street moving processing east?
State Street sees an opportunity to cut costs by moving some of its processing operations to eastern Europe, says chief executive Ron Logue. “We see eastern Europe as two different types of opportunity,” Logue told Bloomberg TV. “One is in terms of product manufacturing, processing at a lower factor cost ...
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Features
More to do on settlement
Tim Steele Alongside safekeeping, settlement is one of the foundation stones of the classic ‘hold and settle’ custody model, and in theory one of the most straightforward functions performed by a custodian bank. Yet figures produced by UK-based Amaces show that missed settlement deadlines remain a concern. The firm currently ...
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Features
The next big thing?
They could be the ‘new big thing’ in the US savings industry. And like the individual retirement accounts, the new Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) imply putting aside tax free money and investing it in stocks and bonds. Although the sums are smaller, the potential is not: there could be $75bn ...
