Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 649
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Features
Time to shut the back office
This article considers issues involved in outsourcing each of the main areas of a pension scheme, and in particular back office outsourcing. It is based on an operation I successfully carried out at the £3bn (e4.3bn) TRW/Lucas fund in the UK. This was probably the first case of an in-house ...
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Features
Cracking the German market first
As the European pension market evolves, with new regulations creating greater diversity in the types of pensions available to workers, pension providers are faced with the issue of how to administer the different products they are now able to offer. Nowhere is this problem more marked than in Germany where ...
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Features
External managers still make sense
All over Europe, pension funds are handing over the running of their assets to third-party managers. Outsourcing has become a buzz word as regulatory reform, a clampdown on costs and risk, and a greater awareness of best market practice lead pension funds into new asset classes with new managers and ...
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Features
Switch to DC poses real problems
The UK has a long history of defined benefit (DB) pensions, but in recent years many employers have switched to defined contribution (DC) schemes, particularly for new members. As the requirements are different for each of these arrangements, changing from DB to DC presents companies with administration and governance challenges. ...
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Features
Questions of perspective
This month’s Off The Record considers two topics instead of the usual one. The first topic is the intention of some European governments to raise the statutory retirement age. In Germany the Rürup Commission has recommended raising the retirement age from 65 to 67, and there are similar proposals in ...
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Features
Revised legislation aims to strengthen fund assets
In Austria, pensions have hit the headlines over the past year. The run-up to June’s passing of the pensions reform bill by the Austrian parliament was marked by national strikes and demonstrations as points of the bill were hotly opposed. In the end, concessions had to be made on key ...
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Features
Focus has been on second pillar pensions
The Brussels-based Belgian Pension Fund Association (BPFA) has found itself involved in two main areas in the past year or so: the implementation of the new law on second-pillar pensions and the investments results of Belgian funds during 2002. In addition, the BPFA has undergone some internal restructuring as a ...
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Features
Funds struggle to meet their capital requirements
Danish funds suffered more than many from the market meltdown. Much of Denmark’s pension money is based on a 4.5% minimum benefit guarantee, which was the rate for 12 years until 1994. The falls in share prices and interest rates, combined with the high guarantee, have made it difficult for ...
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Features
Employers get greater flexibility in making fund transfers
It has been a good year for Finland’s Association of Pension Foundations. In July legislation came into effect allowing employers to transfer schemes from pension companies to funds and foundations. Finland has a generous earnings-related first pillar system, partly funded but mostly PAYG. There is no ceiling on earnings and ...
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Features
Effecting domestic pension reforms takes centre stage
As with pension fund associations elsewhere across Europe, the Association Française des Regimes et Fonds de Pension (Afpen) has found itself devoting a large amount of its time to domestic pensions reform, and, to a lesser extent, the European pensions directive for occupational schemes. “These reforms are the widest-ranging set ...
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Features
Making a smooth transition to a new pension market
The Riester reforms continue to dominate the German pensions landscape and the Heidelberg-based German occupational pension fund association, Arbeitsgemeinschaft fuer Betriebliche Altersversorgung (ABA), says its main role now is to ensure a continued smooth transition to the new market, good communication and education of pension fund members and to get ...
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Features
Bringing hedge funds in from the cold
The current discussion in Germany about the deregulation of the hedge fund industry highlights an important issue faced by retail and institutional investors: how to find investments that can weather not only difficult market conditions but also offer potential for attractive future returns? The past three years have shown that ...
