December 2017

08Dec

Namibia. Nuyoma re-appointment as pension fund boss

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Principal Officer David Nuyoma of the Government Institutions Pension Fund (GIPF) was re-appointment for another five years effective from 1 January 2018 until 2022. At a signing ceremony held at the Fund’s head office this week, the Chairman of the GIPF Board of Trustees Goms Menette signed and confirmed the re-appointment of Nuyoma which was witnessed by members of the Board of GIPF, Management and trade union representatives. Nuyoma who joined GIPF on the 1 January...

December 8, 2017
News, Slider
Read more...
07Dec

Brazil. Government Increases Pressure to Get Pension Reform Bill Approved

President Michel Temer has increased pressure on his governing coalition in the lower house of congress by stating that the political environment has changed and is now favorable for the approval of the pension reform bill. However, allies are still holding out on putting the bill - a constitutional amendment proposal (PEC) - to a vote this year. The administration believes that the fate of the bill will be decided on Thursday (the 5th). President Temer will assemble party leaders in...

December 7, 2017
News, Slider
Read more...
07Dec

EU. EIOPA speaks on insurance and pensions

The Chairman of the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), Gabriel Bernardino, delivered a speech at EIOPA’s 7th annual conference on Insurance and Pensions Reloaded: A Game Changer. The speech covered the following four themes that cross over EIOPA’s main strategic priorities: Maintaining sound regulation in an evolving landscape – this included a discussion on the development of the proposed regulation on the Pan-European Personal Pension Product. Supervisory convergence and the building up of a common European – Mr Bernardino referred to the publication of...

December 7, 2017
News, Slider
Read more...
07Dec

UK will not pay lump sum Brexit bill, according to draft agreement

The U.K. will pay no upfront Brexit divorce bill to the European Union but will instead continue to act “as if [it] remained a member state” by meeting its ongoing liabilities as and when they arise for decades to come, according to a draft text of a joint agreement with the EU. The clause forms part of a proposed draft agreement between London and Brussels that was circulated among U.K. officials Monday, the contents of which have been shared with...

December 7, 2017
News, Slider,
Read more...
06Dec

OECD: UK has lowest state pension of any developed country

Britain’s workers can look forward to the worst state pension of any major country, according to a report by the developed world’s leading economic thinktank. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study calculated that a typical British worker will at retirement receive a state pension and other benefits worth around 29% of what they had previously been earning. That compares with an average of 63% in other OECD countries, and more than 80% in Italy and the Netherlands. The report...

December 6, 2017
News, Slider
Read more...
06Dec

Brazil’s Bovespa jumps as legislators organize behind pension bill

Brazil's benchmark Bovespa index led gains among Latin American equities markets on Tuesday, as the governing coalition appeared closer to gaining the votes needed to pass a pension reform. The reform, seen as important to shoring up Brazil's fiscal health, has been by far the dominant factor in the Bovespa's performance for weeks. Late on Monday, Rodrigo Maia, the speaker of Brazil's lower house, told journalists that President Michel Temer was still far from assembling the coalition needed to pass the...

December 6, 2017
News, Slider
Read more...
06Dec

US. Public Pension Funds’ Anti-Fossil Fuel Activism Raises Risks For Beneficiaries

By David Blackmon In a recent piece, I wrote about the fact that the Divestment movement is now running into headwinds, as federal public policy under the Trump Administration moves further away from the movement’s goal of artificially limiting the production of oil and gas domestically, and as it is becoming increasingly clear that some major public pension funds are finding themselves severely underfunded after years of heavy focus on the movement’s investing priorities. As it has become increasingly obvious over...

December 6, 2017
News, Slider
Read more...
05Dec

PPF publish the Purple Book for 2017

In its twelfth edition of the Purple Book, the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) reveals that while the proportion of open schemes has remained relatively steady in the twelve months to March 2017, the number of schemes closed to future accruals has seen a marked increase. The figures show 12 per cent of DB pension schemes are currently open to new members, falling from 13 per cent in 2016 and down from 43 per cent in 2006 (when Purple Book records...

December 5, 2017
News, Slider
Read more...
05Dec

New Zealand is robbing us of our Swiss pensions

Swiss expats living in New Zealand want to use Automatic Exchange of Information (AIE) to get a fair distribution of pensions in their adopted country, and they’ve persuaded one chamber of Swiss parliament to take up their cause. For many people who have spent their lives grinding away at a job in Switzerland, the idea of retiring at 65 and heading for an island where the cost of living is low and a Swiss pension goes far is highly appealing. But in...

December 5, 2017
News, Slider,
Read more...
05Dec

EU court adviser says Britain was wrong to refuse transgender woman’s pension

Britain’s rejection of a transgender woman’s claim for a women’s state pension because she was still married to her spouse from before her transition is discriminatory, an EU court adviser said on Tuesday. Advocate General Michal Bobek of the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) stated in a non-binding opinion that marriage status does not play a role in accessing state retirement pensions for people who are not transgender. “This amounts to direct discrimination on the basis of sex,...

December 5, 2017
News, Slider,
Read more...