August 2017

22Aug

UK. Ex-BHS owner Dominic Chappell prosecuted by pensions regulator

Dominic Chappell, the former owner of BHS, is to be prosecuted by the pensions watchdog for failing to provide information for an investigation into its sale. Chappell headed Retail Acquisitions, the company that acquired BHS for £1 from Sir Philip Green in 2015. A year later, it collapsed with the loss of 11,000 jobs and a pension deficit of as much as £571m. The Pensions Regulator is prosecuting Chappell for failing to comply with three notices for information issued under Section...

August 22, 2017
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22Aug

Nigeria. PenCom against Devolution of Power Bill

The National Pension Commission (PenCom), has kicked against the ongoing amendment on pension in the Constitutional Amendment Bill No.3 on Devolution of Powers by the National Assembly. The Acting Director-General, Mrs. Aisha Dahir-Umar, said the amendment if passed into law, will bring chaos and regulatory arbitrage in the country. She said acceding to the proposed amendment which allows State Houses of Assembly to enact laws establishing regulatory agencies on pension matters would directly be in conflict with the Pension Reform Act...

August 22, 2017
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22Aug

73% of Aussies plan to use the Age Pension

Most Australians (63 per cent) do not have a plan for how they will live in retirement and 73 per cent plan to use the Age Pension when they retire, according to Sunsuper. Sunsuper’s latest report surveyed over 1,000 Australians and found that 30 per cent of people never thought about their retirement and four per cent did not care about retiring. The remaining 66 per cent had vastly mixed feelings. Those who felt positively (33 per cent) about retiring were...

August 22, 2017
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22Aug

UK government announces measures to tackle pension cold-calling

It is hoped that this “two-pronged” attack on scammers will not only put a hurdle in the way in which fraudsters contact would be retirees, but will also limit their options in getting access to savings. Former pensions minister, Baroness Ros Altmann, said: “The government has bowed to the overwhelming pressure from politicians, consumer groups and the pensions industry to urgently introduce a ban on pensions cold-calling. “This is great news. It is also going to toughen rules on transfers out...

August 22, 2017
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22Aug

US. How Far Does $1 Million Go in Retirement?

A million dollars—it has a nice ring to it. But as Dr. Evil learned after spending 30 years cryogenically preserved, it may not be enough—for many people, certainly not enough to comfortably retire on, depending on where and how long they live. A new report from GOBankingRates measures how long a million dollars would last for retirees 65 and older, state by state. It did that by multiplying the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ mean annual expenditures for that age group...

August 22, 2017
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21Aug

Here’s how China’s Ageing will Narrow Income Gaps in West

In recent years politicians and thinkers in the developed world have found themselves struggling to explain three trends that have gripped advanced economies: the long-term fall in real interest rates adjusted for inflation, the fall in workers’ real wages, and the sharp rise in inequality between rich and poor. In truth, these three trends are easy enough to understand if you take a global, rather than a national or regional view. They can all be explained by the economic rise of...

August 21, 2017
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21Aug

UK. Scale of pension scams revealed as ministers pledge fraud action

Sir Steve Webb demanded urgent action to protect savers as new figures showed £43m had been illegally siphoned off over the last three years. Critics have claimed moves in recent years to give savers more options over their pension pots has created new opportunities for fraudsters. Proposals put forward by ministers include a ban on all cold calling in relation to pensions and tougher rules on transferring money between pension schemes. Full Content: The Yorkshire Post

August 21, 2017
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18Aug

Swiss Re is moving its €130 billion portfolio into ethical investments

One of Europe’s biggest insurers is shifting its investments towards socially responsible companies. Swiss Re, a strategic partner of the World Economic Forum, is moving its €130 billion investment portfolio to target businesses that meet specific ethical benchmarks. While the firm is the first insurer to shift its entire investment portfolio in this way, the move shows a resurgence of social responsibility in the industry. In 2016, Axa announced plans to divest €1.8 billion of tobacco investments, because of its impact...

August 18, 2017
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18Aug

Low-fee pension funds account for 9pc of Hong Kong employees, says MPF authority

Nine per cent of Hong Kong pension fund accounts, or 834,000 accounts, have switched to the newly launched low-fee default funds since April, the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority (MPFA) said on Wednesday. The Default Investment Strategy (DIS) reform, introduced on April 1, requires all 15 pension fund providers in the city to set up default funds for employees who do not make specific investment requests, capping management and other fees at 0.95 per cent, lower than the average of...

August 18, 2017
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18Aug

US. 401k ‘Cashout’ Craziness Continues

In May, Retirement Clearinghouse announced the National Retirement Savings Cashout Clock, a virtual clock that calculates 2017 year-to-date cashout leakage in real time from America’s defined contribution system. At the time it was announced, the clock had already registered $24.4 billion in cashouts. Since then, it’s added another $16 billion, and crossed the $40 billion mark in late July. As of this writing, $42.3 billion in cashouts have occurred thus far in 2017. If nothing happens to stem the flow,...

August 18, 2017
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