January 2022
14Jan

Pensions in Germany: How the new government plans to solve an age-old issue

Germany's ageing population continues to cause uncertainty about the future of the pension system. Here's how the new government is planning to make ends meet. The issues with Germany’s pensions pot are well documented. Thanks to the country’s ageing population, over the next 10-15 years, a huge number of people will go from being tax payers to pension recipients, creating a troubling imbalance between people paying into the system and people drawing money out. It’s a problem that has been plaguing...

January 14, 2022
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Opinion: Do ‘ethical’ pension funds have a private equity problem?
13Jan

Do ‘ethical’ pension funds have a private equity problem?

By Brett Arends The people running public pension plans these days like to boast about their “ethical” investment policies, for example when it comes to the environment or “diversity, equity and inclusion.” Meanwhile they pour billions of dollars into secretive private-equity funds in pursuit of extra profits. Now comes yet more evidence that some of those private-equity managers in turn are using that money for the opposite of ethics. “Private equity ownership leads to an increase of 147% in the percentage of… financial...

January 13, 2022
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12Jan

Wages and pensions fall in Uruguay due to economic policy

Wage drops and pension losses foreshadowed today a 2022 of economic restrictions in Uruguay, according to data provided by representatives of the Social Security Bank (PBS for its acronym in Spanish). The year before closed as the second consecutive year of the current right-wing coalition government, in which the adjustment of the salary of the workers was lower than inflation, which also means that retired people will receive a pension below the level of consumer prices. Ramón Ruiz, director of the...

January 12, 2022
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12Jan

US. 5 Benefits of Delaying Retirement

Delaying retirement can be a major sacrifice, especially if you're eager to leave behind the working world and start enjoying a life of leisure as a senior. But it's also a sacrifice worth making in many cases. There are five huge benefits of putting off your departure from your job, all of which should be carefully considered before you decide to give notice.   1. You can make a delayed Social Security claim The longer you wait to start your Social Security checks,...

January 12, 2022
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12Jan

UK. Double tax whammy risk for big pension withdrawals

Thousands of people in the UK are at risk of being hit with huge tax bills when they enter drawdown, insurance provider NFU Mutual has warned. The firm analysed data from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) showing that in 2020-21 around 15,296 pension pots worth more than £50,000 ($66,144, €58,500) were fully withdrawn. Worryingly, 61.3% of those who cashed out did so without seeking financial advice, up from the 58.9% of the previous year. A similar trend was also registered for pots...

January 12, 2022
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12Jan

China. Plan focuses on affordable elderly care

China is taking steps to make affordable nursing services available to more elderly people in the next four years to meet the needs of its aging population and improve the quality of their lives. Read also Malaysia. Tweak pension fund to benefit low- income workers The State Council recently approved the public service plan for the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period, which said the Chinese people have higher requirements for better lives, with public services including education, medical treatment and nursing...

January 12, 2022
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11Jan

UK. Parliament moves to ban flat fees on small pots

The move comes almost exactly a year since the Department for Work and Pensions formally proposed the ban in response to the review of the default fund charge cap. At that time, research from the Pensions Policy Institute estimated that the number of small, deferred pots in master trusts could surge from 8m to 27m by 2035, with the cost to members in fees and other charges reaching £1.2bn, in some cases wiping out small pots entirely. While the industry was...

January 11, 2022
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11Jan

US. These humble Pa. county pension plans beat PSERS’ returns by keeping it simple

Money management, according to billionaire hedge-fund managers and other high-paid practitioners, is a complex science and art. But does it really have to be? Big state pension funds in states like Pennsylvania or California spend many hundreds of millions of dollars a year hiring many sophisticated advisers to bet on arcane strategies -- multiple classes of hedge funds and private equity, real estate and debt funds -- in hopes of boosting long-term profit and protecting from market downturns. Over time,...

January 11, 2022
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11Jan

Estonia. State to provide option of increasing second pension pillar deposits

The Ministry of Finance has drawn up an intention to allow people to voluntarily increase their second pension pillar deposits to 4 percent or 6 percent from the current 2 percent. The draft is currently on a coordination round. Since the creation of the mandatory funded pension system, the rate of payment for the second pillar has always been 2 percent of a working person's gross salary, but the finance ministry is planning amendments to the Funded Pensions Act, which...

January 11, 2022
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11Jan

Germany’s Aging Population Means 5 Million Fewer Workers

Germany’s population is aging and the impact is starting to get real, according to Holger Schaefer, senior economist with the IW economic institute in Cologne. In 2022, the workforce is set to shrink by more than 300,000 people as more reach retirement age than start working, and it will get worse in the coming years, he said on Twitter. By the end of the decade, there could be more than 5 million fewer workers, unless immigration can plug the gap. Read more...

January 11, 2022
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