December 2020

15Dec

A Retirement Dashboard for the U.S.?

Noting that the U.S. retirement system is not easy to navigate, a recent white paper calls for the creation of a retirement dashboard to help savers better manage and keep track of their savings. “While it would not address systemic problems such as coverage, a dashboard could reduce the strain that a complex retirement system imposes on households,” authors David John of the AARP Public Policy Institute, Grace Enda of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, and...

December 15, 2020
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14Dec

South Africa. 1 600 municipal employees’ pensions have lapsed due to ‘non-payment of pension fund contributions’

Several municipalities across the country have defaulted on paying workers' pension contributions to their respective pension funds. Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said municipalities in the Free State, North West and Northern Cape were mostly affected by the default in pension fund contributions. The DA said it would lay charges against the involved municipal officials. While governance failures have all but decimated some of the country's poorest municipalities, errant officials have not been paying millions in employer contributions to workers'...

December 14, 2020
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14Dec

Ireland. A new model for pensions required

Sir, – Reading of the restoration of pension payments to 4,000 of the highest-paid public office-holders and pay increases for judges under the public pay agreement is infuriating. One wonders why these are being restored at all during a crisis, with unprecedented public spending commitments to compensate thousands who have lost their jobs and livelihoods during the pandemic. We are also informed that a number of senior HSE executives will receive lump-sum payments of €300,000 upon retirement and annual...

December 14, 2020
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14Dec

COVID-19 crisis, a wake-up call on social protection for workers

The need for universal social protection in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic has been underlined at a virtual conference of trade union leaders from national trade union confederations across continents. Workers’ representatives at the Fourth meeting of the “Social Protection, Freedom and Justice for Workers Network” on 9 December, explained how their organizations’ have contributed to the formulation of national social protection responses to the COVID-19 crisis. They discussed trade union advocacy strategies for social protection at the...

December 14, 2020
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11Dec

Time for U.S. to address savings crisis for workers

U.S. president-elect Joe Biden has sketched out ambitious plans to reinvigorate the pandemic-battered economy. But without addressing a festering savings crisis, efforts to revitalize the middle class are doomed to fail. The U.S. savings and retirement system is broken, and desperately needs an overhaul to give Americans an opportunity to build lifetime financial resilience. The economic ravages of a pandemic mean that a national conversation in the U.S. on change is imperative, starting with ways to move towards more universal...

December 11, 2020
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11Dec

FinTech In The Time Of COVID: What Financial Services Companies Need To Know

Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic in early 2020, consumers and the business community have had to navigate new realities. The pandemic has dramatically changed the ways in which we interact, presenting challenges that were rarely, if ever, previously contemplated. Some industries have been affected profoundly, while others are naturally better suited to withstand the evolving pandemic landscape. Financial technology (FinTech) companies are a good example of an industry well positioned to thrive in this environment. Given the...

December 11, 2020
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11Dec

Asset management CEO arrested in Taiwan pension fund scandal

The CEO and other executives of one of Taiwan's largest asset management companies are being held incommunicado after being questioned over an alleged national labor fund investment scandal, the Taipei District Prosecutor’s Office said Friday (Dec. 11). The office launched the third stage of its bribery investigation on Thursday (Dec. 10). A Ministry of Labor official responsible for labor fund management was arrested two weeks ago for allegedly engaging in stock speculation. You Wei-wen (游迺文), who had been working...

December 11, 2020
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11Dec

US. 4 Public Pension Funding Strategies Besides Employer Contributions

Maybe it’s time for pension plans to explore other funding strategies aside from public employer contributions. Plan sponsors typically use the annual required contribution (ARC) or the actuarially determined employer contribution (ADEC) to meet public pension liabilities. But a number of states have found success experimenting with lesser-known methods. It could be useful for other public retirement programs to consider these strategies, according to a report released this week from the National Institute on Retirement Security. While resilient...

December 11, 2020
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10Dec

New York’s $226 Billion Pension Fund Is Dropping Fossil Fuel Stocks

New York State’s pension fund, one of the world’s largest and most influential investors, will drop many of its fossil fuel stocks in the next five years and sell its shares in other companies that contribute to global warming by 2040, the state comptroller said on Wednesday. Read also Exxon Under Pressure From New Activist Fund With $226 billion in assets, New York’s fund wields clout with other retirement funds and its decision to divest from fossil fuels could accelerate...

December 10, 2020
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10Dec

Mexican Congress passes major reform to boost pensions

The Mexican Congress late on Wednesday passed one of the biggest overhauls to the country's pension system in years, boosting retirement benefits and reducing workers' mandatory contribution times, in a victory for President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Read also The Consequences of Long-Term State Pension Underperformance The initiative, which the government originally set out in July, will lower to 1,000 from 1,250 the number of weeks workers must have paid in to claim retirement benefits. Read also Chilean lawmakers...

December 10, 2020
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