September 2018

04Sep

UK. Union call for pension funds clean-up over links to Donald Trump’s migrant camps

UNISON has proposed a merger of pension pots and the creation of a new ethical investment unit. The call comes after The Sunday Post revealed £138 million of Scottish workers’ pension cash was being used to bankroll the US President’s immigration detention centres. The funds are managed by global finance firms with huge investments in GEO Group and CoreCivic, America’s largest private prison operators. Strathclyde Pension Fund, which manages pension funds for 230,000 public service workers, has £52m invested. Lothian Pension Fund, with...

September 4, 2018
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03Sep

US. Retirement plans see rise in cyberattacks

While we may have hoped that employer-sponsored retirement plans would escape the types of cyberattacks plaguing financial service providers and dominating headlines, service providers to employee benefit plans have experienced a substantial increase in cyberattacks over the past few years. One plan record keeper noted the number of these attacks have more than doubled since 2016. Cybersecurity threats present new risks for fiduciaries of employer-sponsored retirement plans, as well as for advisers and other providers who serve them. However, these...

September 3, 2018
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03Sep

UK. Tax relief on pensions serves to enrich the wealthy. That must change

Pensions tax relief is a juicy morsel for the chancellor should he find a way to make it benefit the exchequer. Even a small slice of the £38bn spent each year subsidising pension saving could help thousands of schools and hundreds of hospitals that would otherwise be starved of cash. A £10bn saving is not outside the bounds of possibility, and that is without even shaking the system to its foundations. All Philip Hammond needs to do in his autumn...

September 3, 2018
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03Sep

French unions plan anti-Macron strike on 9 October

Two of France's major trade unions, the CGT and Force Ouvrière, have called for the strike, along with a students' union and a school students' union. A third labour grouping, Solidaires, has backed the call in principle but will take its official decision next week. In a statement, they condemned Macron's "ideological policies targeting the destruction of our social model, especially favouring an explosion of inequality and the destruction of collective rights". Decisions like the government's announcement that pensions, housing benefit and...

September 3, 2018
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03Sep

Why Nigerians Seek Protection Of Participants In Micro Pension Scheme

The scheme is targeted at the informal sector operators who constitutes over 50 million working adults and un-pensionable Nigerian population who by virtue of their professions, trades and endeavours do neither belong to the current CPS arrangement provided by the Pension Reform Act 2014 as amended nor have a veritable platform to save for their retirement. Nigeria has an adult population of 96.4 million (50.8% Male and 49.2% Female) with 63.9% residing in the rural areas. 56.2million adults (58.3% of...

September 3, 2018
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03Sep

Pension reform in the Czech Republic

Throughout the last 20 years, pension reform has been a crucial topic of public debate in the Czech Republic. Since the major overhaul of the pension systems in 1995, which transformed the previous socialist model to a new one that would fit the market economy, many reform steps have been taken. Speaking for the policy makers and key stakeholders of the Czech society, it is appropriate to say that we believe the pension reform is an ongoing process that...

September 3, 2018
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August 2018

31Aug

Australia. RBA says outage won’t hit pension payments

Pensions and welfare payments do not appear to have been affected by the outage at the Reserve Bank of Australia’s main data centre that hit some payments systems on Thursday afternoon. In a statement issued on Thursday evening, Australia’s central bank said that “retail and corporate customers are able to make and receive payments including payments made through the New Payments Platform.” Crucially, the RBA said “domestic payments, including pensions, are also being processed.” The prospect of government payments being hit by...

August 31, 2018
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31Aug

Asians must wake up to the hidden costs of retirement

It is no secret that global debt levels are rising, and now stand above 300% of overall gross domestic product, to the consternation of at least some investors. Less well known is the equally disturbing fact that retirement liabilities -- future commitments covering pensions, health and social care costs -- are also rising rapidly and, in some countries, they already dwarf current debt levels. Today, this is primarily a problem for the developed world, including the U.S., Europe and Japan. But...

August 31, 2018
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31Aug

Russia Continue To Explore Blockchain, This Time It’s Pensions

Russia, they are on the fence about cryptocurrencies, but when it comes to blockchain technology, authorities and services over there see blockchain as a favourable innovation. Latest reports from Russia suggest that the Russian State Pension Fund (PFR), a social service within Russia, are set to start working with blockchain technologies in order to make the most of smart contracts, to issue employment contracts between employers and new employees. According to Cointelegraph, this new project plans to: “Introduce smart contracts to...

August 31, 2018
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31Aug

3 Challenges for Getting ESG Funds Into Retirement Plans

The recent decision made by the new CalSavers Retirement Savings Program not to offer an environmental, social, and governance option, despite its preference for doing so, highlights the challenges for getting ESG funds into retirement plans. The CalSavers Retirement Savings Program is a new state-run defined-contribution plan for employees in California who work for companies that don't offer their own retirement-savings plans. CalSavers issued a request for proposal, or RFP, in May 2018 for a simple lineup of passively managed...

August 31, 2018
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