February 2023

ESG: EU Regulatory Change and Its Implications

Despite the sharp change in the financial landscape over the past year and an increasingly challenging macroeconomic climate, investment focused on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors is set to grow. Global ESG assets may reach $50 trillion by 2025, one-third of the projected total assets under management globally, from $35 trillion in 2020. [1] Climate-related challenges, in particular, have come to the fore given the experience of unprecedented heat waves in parts of Europe, forest fires in the...

Test case could land Indigenous Australians early age pension

A legal test case could result in Indigenous Australians accessing age pension payments three years early, as a Wakka Wakka elder argues he should qualify sooner because his life expectancy is lower. Dennis James Fisher’s legal team, led by Ron Merkel, KC, argue Indigenous men such as their client, who was born in 1957, do not have the same opportunity to retire and receive the same age-pension support as other Australians. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that in 2015–17, the...

Asia’s population is shrinking faster than any other continent’s.

Asia faces a problem: Its population is aging faster than any other continent’s. A growing percentage of people in Japan, South Korea and China are over 65, and those countries’ economies are suffering because of a lack of available workers. Governments are struggling to find the money to support retirees. The problem is pronounced in Japan. I spoke to Motoko Rich, The Times’s Tokyo bureau chief, about what it means when a society ages this quickly. Claire: You’ve reported on the...

69% of Workers Plan to Hold Down a Job in Retirement. For Many of Them, That’s Not a Choice.

Many of us are used to grinding out way through a job for many years because, well, that's sort of what we have to do. But it's also easy to see why the idea of working in retirement is unappealing to a lot of people. After all, you've held down a job your entire life. You deserve to enjoy a stretch of time when work doesn't come into the picture. But unfortunately, a large number of workers today may end up...

Social Security Benefits: The Good and Bad News for Retired Workers in 2023

Social Security is a major source of financial well-being in retirement. Nearly 49 million retired workers received benefits in January, and about half of people aged 65 and older get at least 50% of their family income from Social Security. Given its importance, retired workers should try to stay informed on the program, and there have been several big changes already this year. Inflation scorched the U.S. economy last year, driving up the cost of gasoline, groceries, and other necessities...

Tech Opportunities In Climate Change And An Aging Population

Tech opportunities in areas like 5-G, cloud computing, healthcare, and finance took up the last posting. This one examines opportunities in meeting two huge issues facing the world’s economies: the growing number of older retirees in populations and the big kahuna of climate change. Seldom do all the answers to these or any other problems lie in technological solutions, but tech certainly will have a role to play and a prominent one. The growing proportion of older people in the population...

New pension strikes grip France as MPs wage legislative battle

The fifth day of action against President Emmanuel Macron's reform -- whose headline measure is raising the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 -- aims to keep up the pressure ahead of a wider mass walkout, planned for March 7. But unlike previous strike days, most mainline trains and the Paris metro were running normally, as fewer workers participated during school holidays across most of France. That was reflected in education ministry figures showing fewer than eight percent of teachers...

UK. Industry organisations call for ‘urgent’ clarity on pensions dashboards

Industry experts have argued that “regulatory certainty” around pensions dashboards is needed as quickly as possible, with concerns over the timing and implementation of pensions dashboards emerging ahead of the first scheme staging deadlines. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) recently held consultations to gather views on proposed design standards for pension dashboards, and the regulatory framework for operators, both of which closed today (16 February). However, whilst the consultations were broadly welcomed by industry experts, concerns...

Switzerland. Phone scammers targeting pensioners in Zurich stole 6,7 million francs in 2022

Phone scammers targeting residents of Zurich succeeded in stealing 6,7 million Swiss francs in 2022, SRF has reported. The trick involves the scammers posing as police officers and calling victims to ask them to pay “bail” in order to release a relative from jail. Many of the victims were retired. Phone scammers try to trick hundreds each day in Zurich According to Swiss broadcaster SRF, phone scammers try to swindle the residents of Zurich out of their hard-earned money hundreds of...

Global institutional retirement assets decline 16.7% in 2022 – Thinking Ahead Institute

Global institutional retirement assets saw a drop of 16.7% in 2022 compared to 2021, dipping to $47.9 trillion — a decline not seen since the 2008 global financial crisis, according to a study by the Thinking Ahead Institute in London. Marisa Hall, institute head, said that retirement assets are very linked to capital markets. "When you see corrections in equities and bonds as we have seen over the last year, it will have a knock-on effect on pension funds," she said. Read...