Wed, Mar 07, 2012
The Dutch Social Affairs minister, a phalanx of pension-sponsoring industry associations, and European insurers are all protesting the stringent capital requirements proposed under Solvency II, the regulatory regime that would harmonize Europe's insurance standards.
Mon, Feb 13, 2012
DB plan providers and plan sponsors in Europe say that higher capital requirements wouldn't make their plans safer, but would force them closer to insolvency.
Wed, Dec 07, 2011
The measure aims to transfer pension funds' liabilities to the Portugese Social Security program while using the assets to help the government meet its budget deficit target and pay down its debt.
Wed, Nov 30, 2011
The British automaker's defined benefit plan assets stood at £7.8bn ($12.3bn) last December, with a surplus of around £700m ($1.1bn).
Wed, Nov 30, 2011
The new regime would be one with no investment choices for plan participants to make. "Our members... are blue-collar workers and typically don't want to make investment decisions themselves," said the plan's chief investment officer.
Wed, Oct 26, 2011
Dutch pension officials ruled out Inflation-related increases in benefits and suggested that cuts were likely.
Wed, Oct 12, 2011
As the Boomers retire and leave a smaller 40 to 64-year-old cohort behind them, bond yields should rise 60 basis points above the increase warranted by GDP growth and inflation prospects, according to Mirko Cardinale, a researcher at Aviva Investors.
Tue, Aug 30, 2011
"The current opposition is strongly against the fact that part of the contributions to the pay-as-you-go system will be transferred to the private system,” said Jiri Rusnok, director of pensions at ING Pnezijni Fond.
Wed, Jul 27, 2011
Many Americans yearn to vacation in romantic Italy, But, as this essay from IPE.com explains, Italians yearn for a less stagnant economy, cleaner politics, more jobs and a pension that replaces 60% of final salary.
Wed, Jul 13, 2011
Though Austria’s statutory retirement ages are 65 for men and 60 for women, Austrian men retire at age 58.9 on average while women retire at age 57.5 on average.
Wed, May 18, 2011
The growth of emerging-market firms in global investment and finance will bring "the sort of multilateral framework for regulating cross-border investment that has been derailed several times since the 1920s," the bank's report said.
Mon, Apr 11, 2011
Poland's deteriorating public finances back in late 2010 drove the changes. The budget deficit is estimated at 7.9% of GDP for 2010.
Wed, Mar 30, 2011
Britain's plan to simplify the state pension to a single-tier plan could hurt private DB plans by ending "contracting-out," the practice of substituting contributions to a private plan for contributions to the second state plan.
Wed, Mar 09, 2011
“The spread between European and US short-term rates... presents the possibility of extracting value,” said Jose Mazoy, Director, Index Portfolio and Risk Solutions at Barclays Capital.
Wed, Mar 09, 2011
A high court in Britain has apparently barred U.K. insurers from using gender as a factor in calculating insurance rates, including payout rates for retail income annuities. One expert observer predicted "unintended consequences."
Wed, Feb 23, 2011
The Australian government should try to deal with longevity risk by developing a “new generation variable annuities market,” according to the Institute of Actuaries of Australia.
Wed, Feb 16, 2011
An estimated $21 billion in net new cash went into US equity funds in January 2011, making it the first month of net inflows to those funds since last April.
Wed, Feb 16, 2011
In a new think tank report, a former JP Morgan banker and Towers Watson consultant suggested that unfunded DB pensions in the U.K. should be closed by 2020 and replaced with "nominal DC schemes."
Wed, Feb 16, 2011
Britain’s National Employers Savings Trust Corporation is hiring the three asset managers to handle portions of the new state-sponsored, employer-based defined contribution plan.
Wed, Jan 19, 2011
The analysis found that the funded status of global pension plans were 87% at the end of 2010, up slightly from 86% at the beginning of the year.
Wed, Jan 12, 2011
Polish workers pay 19.5% of taxable income into the mandatory pensions system, of which 12.2% goes into a plan like our Social Security and 7.3% goes into privately-run DC plans. Starting this year, much of the 7.3% will go to a government-run DC plan instead.
Tue, Jan 04, 2011
By 2055, more than one in three Japanese will be over 65, as the working-age population falls by over a third to 52 million.
Tue, Jan 04, 2011
The bond, which is based on population data, would trigger in the event of a large divergence in the mortality improvements experienced between men aged between 75 and 85 in England & Wales and men aged 55-65 in the US.
Wed, Dec 01, 2010
“This is effectively a nationalisation of private pension funds. It’s the nightmare scenario,” said Dávid Németh, an economist at ING in Budapest.
Wed, Nov 17, 2010
“We won't be investing in a single infrastructure fund, though, or a single commodities fund, or a single high-yield fund until we get bigger,” said Mark Fawcett, CEO of the National Employment Savings Trust.
Thu, Oct 21, 2010
Analysts at Mercer say the U.S. could improve its private pension system by, among other things, requiring that participants convert at least part of their retirement savings to an income stream.
Tue, Sep 28, 2010
Traffic was snarled in France's cities last week, fewer than half of the Paris Metro's lines worked normally, and about half of the long-distance trains were canceled, as an estimated one million workers protested changes in pension laws.
Wed, Sep 22, 2010
Within six months of retirement, workers in the U.K. should get two half-days off for retirement income counseling, and they should be provided with three competitive annuity quotes, says a major U.K. third-party administrator.
Tue, Sep 21, 2010
Geert-Jan Troost, an investment consultant at Towers Watson, said that while these bonds can serve as a "great" diversifier from a liability point of view, there were a number of issues to consider.
Wed, Sep 01, 2010
Surprisingly few retirees use the ‘open market option,’ which allows them to transfer their money at retirement from the asset management company where they accumulated their savings to another provider with a higher annuity rate.
Wed, Aug 25, 2010
Participants in 14 pension funds in the Netherlands are facing benefit cuts in the wake of the financial crisis.
Wed, Aug 11, 2010
The problem is that the demographic group that is selling homes and investments—the postwar BabyBoom generation—will be larger than the group that will be buying the assets.
Wed, Aug 04, 2010
Lobbyists wish to "drastically erode the modest pensions of millions of public sector workers," said Derek Simpson of Unite, Britain's largest union.
Wed, Jul 14, 2010
Instead of giving the highest weights to countries with the most debt, PIMCO's new indices will give the highest weights to countries with the highest income based on GDP.
Wed, Jul 07, 2010
Among risk assets, domestic stock funds were down 19% as a proportion of assets held, while foreign stock funds were down 28%, with a correspondingly positive growth in domestic and international bond funds.
Tue, Jul 06, 2010
It is the lack of global aggregate demand—resulting from too much debt in parts of the global economy and not enough in others--that is the essence of the problem, PIMCO's CIO wrote in his latest column.
Wed, Jun 30, 2010
In Singapore and Hong Kong, millionaire households account for 11.4% and 8.8%, respectively, of all households, according to Boston Consulting Group.
Tue, Jun 22, 2010
The move is expected to allow the government to save €18bn, or about $27 billion, and combat a growing pensions deficit.
Wed, Jun 02, 2010
The United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland already offer their participants the option of a one-off payment as part of their pension rights at the retirement date.
Wed, May 12, 2010
Today, the police, harbor workers, security services and journalists for the state media can retire in their 50s. Starting in 2013, these privileges will be abolished.
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RIJ Publishing, 4340 Knollwood Dr., Emmaus, PA 18049, 610-965-3103
Retirement Income Journal is an online magazine dedicated to writing for and about the industry that has coalesced around the challenge of helping Americans turn their savings into secure lifetime incomes. This industry includes members of the insurance, asset management, banking, pension, structured products, reverse mortgage, information technology, financial planning and academic communities and the professional organizations that serve them.
Send editorial queries to kerry.pechter@retirementincomejournal.com.
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