All Securities Services articles – Page 21
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Features
Rocking the pillars
The World Bank has signalled a shift in its position on the pension issue. With the publication in February of ‘Old age income support in the 21st Century’, an international prospective on pension systems and reform it indicated that it had taken on board some of the criticisms that have ...
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Features
Managing your custodian
IPE has teamed up with Amaces, a UK-based provider of analytical and benchmarking services to pension funds and fund managers, to give readers an insight to performance standards within the securities services industry On a quarterly basis, Amaces will provide IPE with a table of live data drawn from its ...
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Features
Shape of things to come
There is no smoke without fire, runs the old saw, and sure enough the long predicted – if oft denied – merger between the Royal Bank of Canada’s Global Services securities services operation and Luxembourg-based Dexia BIL has finally come to pass. First rumoured back in early 2003, the deal ...
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Features
Solving Britain's pensions crisis
Not very long ago, Britain’s pension system was the envy of Europe, if not the world. Other European countries faced the prospect of ever higher government spending and budget deficits as their populations aged: their high state pension promises were beginning to look rather reckless. Britain, meanwhile, had funded schemes ...
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Features
Currency and behaviour
Portfolio investors have progressively accepted the argument that international diversification provides risk/return benefits. However, the currency dimension has remained an emotional issue and currency hedging is a sensitive decision. Attractive local-currency returns on foreign asset market can be swamped by a depreciation of the foreign currency. Conversely, the return on ...
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Features
Pragma assesses new EU members
The 10 new EU member states ought to encourage defined benefit-type pension schemes and introduce three-pillar systems, according to a report from Brussels-based consultant Pragma. Nine international institutions, including the two largest Dutch pension schemes ABP and PGGM, sponsored the EU-wide study. It aimed to give the new members’ reserves ...
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Features
Pooling is now on the agenda
The UK custody and securities services market continues to be one of the most competitive in Europe and can still attract new players. BNP Paribas Securities Services and KAS Bank are the latest European players to take on the dominance of the big US banks. These relative newcomers are not ...
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Features
Pioneers can pay a price
Sweden is known for its pioneering approach to pension provision. It introduced member choice of investment in its state Premium Pension defined contribution pension scheme, and make asset and liability modelling obligatory for its Allmänna Pensionsfonden (AP), the funds that back the government’s pay-as-you-go scheme. Such innovations depend upon modern ...
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Special Report
Investors take LTRI initiative
The last five years have seen a sea change in investment beliefs and practices. Previously those who might have raised concerns about market short-termism would have been dismissed as ideologically motivated critics, and those who favoured SRI, as having other agendas. While passionate defenders of the status quo have not ...
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Features
The global transformation
We are in the midst of a revolution in the organisation of global markets and the competitiveness of corporate form and functions. This has enormous implications for financial markets and their interest in defined benefit (DB) pension liabilities. Employer-sponsored funded supplementary pensions were a success story in Anglo-American economies and ...
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Features
Risk exposure stalls growth
As can be seen from table 1, the main hedge fund strategies all fell short of their long-term average performance in March. Three of the five strategies, namely convertible arbitrage, long/short equity and event driven, even posted negative returns. These disappointing returns might be explained by the exposure of hedge ...
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Features
Ensuring good performance
Performance and risk analysis have gone a long way since the dark ages of investment, when returns were measured in rather raw form, while risk was hardly measured at all. These days, pension plan trustees are enlightened by slick performance reports, including hundreds of statistics, thoroughly calculated and well-presented with ...
