October 2021

UK’s PensionBee Now has More than 100,000 Invested Customers

As previously reported, PensionBee is a leading online pension provider, helping consumers with transferring their old pensions into one new plan, that they can “easily manage online.” The company says it’s on a mission to “make you pension confident by helping you take control of your pension savings and plan for a happy retirement.” With PensionBee, clients are able to manage their pension from the palm of their hand. Users can check their real-time balance, see their projected retirement income, and...

COVID caused more than 3 million Americans to retire early, a new Fed analysis finds

More than 3 million Americans decided to retire earlier than they would have due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new analysis. Miguel Faria E Castro, a senior economist at the St. Louis Fed, compared retirees to the baby-boomer trend to distinguish between “normal” and “excess” retirements. As of August, he found, there were slightly over 3 million excess retirements, which is more than half of the 5.25 million people who have left the labor force since the beginning...

UK. Pension funds invest £128 billion in fossil fuel businesses, according to new information.

Pension funds should use their huge financial power to help the fight against climate change, a Cabinet minister will say tomorrow. In a speech to the Policy Exchange think tank, Work and Pensions Secretary Thérèse Coffey is to argue the multi-trillion pound retirement savings across the world can become a global “superpower” in the battle for a greener planet. Her address will coincide with the Government setting out plans to align UK pension rules with the 2015 Paris Accord goal to...

Dutch pension giant spurns fossil fuels as funds shift before COP26

Dutch pension fund ABP will divest 15 billion euros ($17.5 billion) of investments in fossil fuel producers by 2023, it said on Tuesday, as many of the world's biggest investors set out new climate policies ahead of next week's COP26 summit. Read also UK pension schemes are funding more emissions than the entire UK’s carbon footprint With policymakers gearing up for the talks aimed at accelerating action on global warming, financial firms from across the world are announcing new steps to...

Canada. LifeWorks releases the results of its Performance Universe of Pension Managers’ Pooled Funds

LifeWorks (TSX: LWRK) has released the results of its Performance Universe of Pension Managers’ Pooled Funds for the third quarter of 2021. Read also UK. FCA creates LTAF, a new investment fund for pension schemes and specialized investors According to the report, in the third quarter of 2021, diversified pooled fund managers posted a median return of 0.7 per cent before management fees and 8.0 per cent since the beginning of the year. Read also Pandemic Offers This Silver Lining For Retirement...

UK. FCA creates LTAF, a new investment fund for pension schemes and specialized investors

Sophisticated investors and pension funds are among those who will have access to new types of investment opportunities following changes made by the FCA. The FCA has confirmed that it will be taking forward proposals to create a new type of open-ended authorised investment fund which will help support investment in assets like infrastructure and private equity. Investment in these assets has the potential to generate better returns for investors, including those saving for retirement in defined contribution (DC) pension...

Ghana. Tier-3 Pension Scheme: Labour Minister seeks support to woo informal sector

The Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Mr Ignatius Baffour Awuah, has called on traditional rulers to join hands with the new Tier-3 Pension Scheme by encouraging people in the informal sector to contribute to the scheme. That, he said, would enable people in the informal sector to enjoy voluntary personal pension payments to cater for their needs at old age. He said chiefs, as opinion leaders, had the clout to influence informal sector workers to take vital decisions such as...

Israel’s Holocaust survivors to be supplemented NIS 20 million

The government has secured an extra NIS 20 million in annual payments for Holocaust survivors living in Israel following negotiations with the German Finance Ministry. The cabinet approved the agreement on Sunday. Some 3,700 Holocaust survivors who receive pensions from the German government will be eligible for the increased payments. The negotiations were conducted by the Social Equality and Pensioners Ministry and the Authority for the Rights of Holocaust Survivors. All those eligible for German pensions will receive an extra €100...

‘We are worried!’ Number of EU citizens claiming benefits doubled during pandemic

The number of EU citizens claiming benefits has doubled during the pandemic, with around 780,000 EU citizens receiving working-age benefits, according to new data from the Department for Work and Pensions. In comparison, the figure stood at just 380,000 in November 2019. Claims from migrants from some nations that acceded into the Brussels bloc in 2004 and 2007 stood even higher than the overall average. Claims from Romania and Bulgaria more than trebled - taking the figure from 66,00 to 190,000 among...

US Public Pension Fund Invests In Bitcoin For The First Time

NYDIG facilitated the purchase, representing "a watershed moment for bitcoin and its place in public pensions," its global head said. A U.S. public pension fund has invested in bitcoin for the first time. The Houston Firefighters' Relief and Retirement Fund acquired an undisclosed amount of BTC through institutional bitcoin services provider NYDIG. The investment "represents a watershed moment for bitcoin and its place in public pensions," the global head of asset management at NYDIG said. Read also US. Allianz, Calpers...