February 2017

Savers hoping for flexible retirement face working into late 70s, expert warns

Sir Steve Webb, a former pensions minister, warned that the dream of a flexible retirement where people gradually go part-time before giving up work entirely when it suits them could turn out to be a "mirage" - if people only contribute minimum amounts into their workplace pension pot. Sir Steve, who is now director of policy at Royal London, said an average worker wanting a "gold standard" of retirement - where their pension income equates to two-thirds of pre-retirement levels...

Rethinking Retirement for Longer Lives With Fewer Safety Nets

Five days a week, Kim Moske makes a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and brown-bags it to work. “I’ve been doing that for 30 years and saving what I would have spent eating my lunch out someplace,” she said. “That’s added up to a lot of money, and truthfully, I don’t care what I eat for lunch.” That is a small gesture, but it is indicative of the advantages of making daily choices to help save for a financially secure...

The public pension system is under stress, thanks to global ageing

Rene Schaaf, senior vice president and chief operating officer, Principal International, is responsible for global business development, strategy and operations of the company in Latin America and Asia. She met Mint during a recent visit to India and discussed global trends in the pension industry. She also elaborated how India is in a unique position when it comes to the retirement market, thanks to the relatively younger population. Schaaf stresses the importance of defined contribution plans for sustainable evolution...

Extreme Poor Persons in UE get support to set up Micro Enterprises

Four thousand one hundred and ninety four extreme poor persons in the Upper East Region have so far been supported by the Japan Social Development Fund Project (JSDF) to set up their own micro enterprises. Majority of the beneficiaries who are women and are drawn from the Bawku West , Talensi, Kassena-Nankana West, Garu –Tempane, Builsa North, South and the Nabdam Districts were trained in the areas of entrepreneurial skills, business advisory services among others in addition to receiving small...

Creating a Pension to Fit the Needs of the Rural Poor

Pensions are, in a sense, a necessary by-product of a rich economy. But what will it take to sell the idea to the rural poor? Especially when their income (never particularly substantial) is seasonal, increasing at harvest time and with demand in the cities for construction-related labor. What are the inducements that can convince them to invest for a future forced upon them by the changing social structure? Olivia S. Mitchell, a Wharton professor of business economics and public policy...

In Puerto Rico, pensions’ decline pits retirees against lenders

As Puerto Rico attempts to sort out its tangled financial web, retirees may face bigger cuts than those in past US municipal insolvencies, due in part to an unconventional debt structure that pits pensioners against the very lenders whose money was supposed to sustain them. The US territory is doing all it can to present itself as a reliable place to invest, but resolving the pensions issue will require a careful balance. Benefit structures are widely seen as unsustainable, but draconian...

Las cuatro AFP que hay en Perú tienen invertido en Graña y Montero casi S/ 1.300 millones

Las acciones de Graña y Montero (GyM) cayeron más de 30% en la Bolsa de Valores de Lima, el viernes último, en medio de una crisis de reputación que se agudizó con las declaraciones del exdirectivo de Odebrecht en Perú, Jorge Barata, quien dijo que esta empresa peruana, socia de la constructora brasileña, estaba al tanto de os sobornos que se pagaron por ganar la buena pro de la Interoceánica Sur. Por si esto fue poco, un grupo de inversionistas...

Afores bajo el escrutinio

Solicitudes de retiro no concluidas o no atendidas, inconformidad con los saldos, desacuerdo con las correcciones o actualizaciones y discrepancias sobre el monto recibido son algunos motivos de quejas contra las Administradoras de Fondos para el Retiro (Afore) que se interponen ante la Comisión Nacional para la Protección y Defensa de los Usuarios de los Servicios Financieros (Condusef) en Yucatán. Otras causas de procesos que se inician ante esa instancia son solicitudes de retiro por desempleo no atendidas o no...

Couples' Retirement under Individual Pension Design: A Regression Discontinuity Study for France

By Elena G. F. Stancanelli (Paris School of Economics) Abstract:     Retirement policies are individually designed but the majority of people of retirement age live as couples. We estimate the effects of a French pension reform on spouses’ employment decisions. We use labor-force survey data, pooled over different years, on fifty thousand French couples and apply a regression discontinuity framework, also controlling for couple’s unobserved heterogeneity. We conclude that the reform immediately reduced both spouses’ retirement probability by about 2...

In sweeping move, Trump puts regulation monitors in US agencies

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday to place "regulatory reform" task forces and officers within federal agencies in what may be the most far reaching effort to pare back US red tape in recent decades. Trump signed the directive in the Oval Office with chief executives of major US corporations standing behind him including Dow Chemical (DOW.N), Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) and US Steel (X.N). The sweeping order directs every federal agency to establish a task force to...