June 2022
08Jun

Nigeria. ‘Pension fund assets rise by N1.53 trillion in one year’

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has released its First Quarter One 2022 Report, showing strong growth in pension fund assets and scheme memberships. The report shows that the total value of Pension Fund Assets under the management of Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) increased by N1.53 trillion yearly from N12.34 trillion recorded as of the end of Quarter One 2021 to N13.88 trillion as of the end of Quarter Two of 2022. Quarterly, total pension assets rose by N46 billion from the...

June 8, 2022
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08Jun

France no longer sees raising retirement age to 65 as ‘a priority’

Pension reform, a key pledge from President Emmanuel Macron’s presidential election campaign, is no longer a major priority for the government, new Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has said. Mr Macron had said multiple times that he planned to raise the pension age in France from 62 to 65 years, and said that the move would be one of the only ways to tackle the pension deficit. However, new PM Ms Borne has now said that it is no longer seen as...

June 8, 2022
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08Jun

US. Corporate Pension Health Continues to Worsen in May

U.S. corporate pension plans ended May with a drop in their aggregate funded status — a simple measure of their financial health. The funded ratio for U.S. corporate pension plans decreased by 0.9 percentage points from April 30 to May 31, according to Wilshire’s May 2022 U.S. corporate pension plans funding report. Specifically, the aggregate funded ratio of the combined assets and liabilities of corporate pension plans sponsored by S&P 500 companies dropped from 98 percent at the end of...

June 8, 2022
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08Jun

German government to set minimum pension fund investment quota for VC allocations

The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) is planning to set a minimum investment quota for venture capital investment allocations by public and private pension plans, according to a report by Investment & Pensions Europe. The proposal would result in a total of €30 billion invested in VC funds as the government looks to boost the amount of capital available to start-ups. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) has drafted a start-up...

June 8, 2022
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07Jun

UK. Work and Pensions Committee to question Pensions Regulator, FCA, MaPS and former pensions ministers

The Work and Pensions Committee will question former pensions ministers and representatives from the Pensions Regulator, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) as part of its inquiry into saving for later life. The inquiry is examining whether households have adequate pension savings for retirement and how the Government can improve outcomes for savers. Purpose of the session The first panel will feature former ministers Sir Steve Webb and Baroness Ros Altmann along with Baroness Jeannie Drake, a former member of the...

June 7, 2022
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07Jun

US. Bitcoin Or Bulls For My Pension Plan?

In the long run, tokenisation is going to change everything. I suppose, like most people, the most important financial decisions that I make are with respect to retirement savings. Therefore I try to stay abreast of developments in the sector. Hence I note with interest that one of the serious players in this space, Fidelity (the largest retirement plan provider in the U.S.), are launching a 401(k) cryptocurrency product. Roughly 23,000 companies use Fidelity to administer their retirement plans, and...

June 7, 2022
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07Jun

Kosovo war veterans clash with police, want higher pensions

Hundreds of Kosovo war veterans clashed with police Monday at a protest to demand higher pensions, leaving at least three people injured, police said. Police kept members of the War Veterans’ Organization of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) away from the parliament in Pristina, where lawmakers were discussing proposal to raise the minimum salary from 170 euros ($182) to 250 euros ($268) per month. More than 30,000 war veterans get 170 euros per month for their pensions but were not included...

June 7, 2022
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07Jun

Iranian pensioners protest against high living costs — reports

Pensioners protested in Iran on Monday against soaring living costs, according to Fars news agency and social media reports, in a further challenge to authorities grappling with weeks of unrest. Demonstrators shouted “our expenses are in dollars, our income in rials” in the northwestern city of Tabriz, the semi-official agency reported. “About 1,000 retirees gathered to protest peacefully and were escorted by the police” in the city, Fars added. Social media posts also purported to show crowds in Qazvin, Shiraz, Shushtar and...

June 7, 2022
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07Jun

Students imagine better products, services, and infrastructure for an aging society

A pop-up hearing aid exposition called HearWeAre. A travel agency that matches older and younger travelers for group adventures. An app that guides outgoing hospital patients through every step of the discharge process. These are a few of the projects presented by students on the final day in the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP)’s class 11.547J/SCM.287J (Global Aging and the Built Environment). Taught by Joseph Coughlin, the director of the MIT AgeLab, and supported by his team...

June 7, 2022
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06Jun

Investors put new weight behind ESG mandates

Institutional investors have focused on ESG for many years, but the industry may be reaching a tipping point in terms of the specificity and sophistication of ESG mandates. Against a backdrop of increasingly hard to ignore climate risks and social unrest brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, the death of George Floyd and the war on Ukraine, institutions are moving away from passive exclusion strategies and leveraging new data to engage with management teams, set specific goals and measure...

June 6, 2022
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