More comment – Page 74
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NewsThe NPRF: Ireland's political football
There is no doubt Ireland is facing an unprecedented sovereign debt crisis, says Jonathan Williams, but is cannibalising its own safety net the best way to solve the problem?
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NewsCardano on the future of pension fund liabilities
Kerrin Rosenberg and Theo Kocken draw startling conclusions about the future shape of pension fund liabilities
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Opinion Pieces
Svobodka Kostadinova and Nickolai Slavchev
For decades, countries in Europe and beyond have been rebounding between the two ideas of privatising social security and nationalising private pension schemes. Perhaps it is high time that the EU proposed a third way.
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Opinion Pieces
Deficits in focus
The EU has now made a significant concession to accommodate the demands made by eight CEE member states and Sweden in August last year for the incorporation of future pension funding shortfalls into national annual budget statistics. Their governments claimed current rules effectively punish them for having made reforms to their pension systems that involved channelling some contributions away from the state system and into private funds.
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Opinion Pieces
George Hoguet, State Street Global Advisors
As the industry ponders the medium-term implications of quantitative easing, sharp fiscal adjustment in Ireland, Greece and elsewhere, intervention by the Bank of Japan in the Japanese equity market, ‘currency wars’ and the future of the Obama presidency, they must confront a stark reality.
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Opinion Pieces
Public vote for change
The Republic victory at the November elections has huge implications for public pension funds. The results are, in fact, supportive of reform to retirement systems that are threatening to bankrupt several state and local administrations. A few newly elected governors advocate moving towards a hybrid pension model where at least ...
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Opinion Pieces
Toby Nangle, Director, Baring Asset Management
“Developing countries are positioned to enjoy a demographic dividend from now until 2030-35”
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Opinion Pieces
A private equity rethink
At the end of a tumultuous decade, US public pension funds are re-evaluating their relationship with private equity firms. Disappointing returns, high fees and a number of scandals are pushing pension fund managers either to quit investing in this asset class or to take more control themselves. But no solution ...
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Opinion Pieces
EIOPA: Mixed feelings
The new European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) opens its doors in 2011 with the prospect of greatly increased powers and a fivefold increase in staff in due course. EIOPA replaces the existing Committee of European Insurance and Occupational Pension (CEIOPS), which is one of the three ‘level three’ ...
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Opinion Pieces
Damian Handzy, chairman and CEO, Investor Analytics
Never mind what went wrong in the financial crisis, what went right?
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Opinion Pieces
Social reform tensions
The campaign for the November mid-term Congressional elections is heating up, and one topic raising temperatures is social security reform. Depending on the outcome of the elections in the House and the Senate, the recommendations of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (NCFRR), due by 1 December, will be received in a different political environment.
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Opinion Pieces
IAS19 volatility danger
Perhaps unsurprisingly, pension fund representative bodies have registered their objection to the International Accounting Standards Board’s (IASB) fair value proposals for defined benefit (DB) pension accounting. There is also backing from two major US organisations and a European one, plus general support by a second European body.
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Opinion Pieces
Getting its Act together
US pension funds won two important battles in the debate that led to the approval of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act in July. One is concern over the use of swaps to hedge plan risks, and the other is with stable value funds. The Act is also so complex that institutional investors are still waiting to see how it will affect them. It runs to more than 2,300 pages and its full impact might not be felt for years: according to conservative estimates, regulators have been conducting nearly 100 studies and writing more than 350 new rules implementing the changes.
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Opinion Pieces
The Commission hides its teeth
The authors of the European Commission’s policy paper, ‘Towards Adequate, Sustainable and Safe European Pension Systems’, are clearly aware that solving Europe’s pension challenge is a formidable task. Not only are there the oft-cited demographic problems and injustices to workers who move across national boundaries, but there is also the fragmented nature of member states’ legislative frameworks to consider.
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Opinion Pieces
Stephen Cooper, board member, International Accounting Standards Board
The issue of accounting for pensions has always been fraught for standard-setters who by necessity concentrate their efforts on the needs of investors who are, after all, generally considered to be the primary users of financial statements
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Opinion Pieces
Cash Balance
Coca-Cola is the latest big US company to convert its final salary pension plan to cash balance, thereby becoming part of a trend highlighted in a recent survey of the Fortune 100 companies by professional services firm Towers Watson. Of these companies, the number replacing their traditional defined benefit (DB) plans with account-based retirement plans for new employees continues to increase.
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Opinion Pieces
Derivatives
Proposals for legislative measures on uncovered, or naked, short selling of securities and the trade in derivatives – two crucial areas in the EU’s wholesale upgrade of financial legislation post-financial crisis – are open to response from interested parties until 10 July.
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Opinion Pieces
Pension contracts and regulation
Robert C Merton and Jan Snippe argue that Dutch pension legislation should be inspired by fresh and logical thinking
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Opinion Pieces
Con Keating, head of research at Brighton Rock Group
“The optimal distribution of risk between member and sponsor is complex”
