August 2019

28Aug

Third of UK’s top companies to cut executive pensions – investor body

Nearly a third of the companies in Britain’s FTSE 100 index of blue chip firms have agreed to cut pension payments for executives, the Investment Association said on Wednesday, amid increasing scrutiny of the gap between bosses’ and ordinary workers’ pensions in Britain. In February, the Investment Association, which represents big asset managers, said a company would be “red-topped” if it did not explicitly state that any new executive director would have pension contributions set in line with the...

August 28, 2019
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28Aug

How Fintech Can Make Banking More Inclusive – and Empowering

In this era of Big Data, it seems like financial services companies know everything there is to know about our lives as consumers – where we live, what we do for a living, how much we make, how much we have saved, what we buy and what we might want to purchase in the future. Read also Berlin-based mobile savings platform Raisin to acquire pension fintech Fairr But the reality is there are huge segments of the population in the...

August 28, 2019
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27Aug

Senators Demand U.S. Pension Fund Reject China Investment

Two senior members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are calling on administrators of the federal government’s main retirement savings fund to reverse a decision that they say would shift billions in investments into Chinese companies supporting that nation’s military and espionage efforts. Read also US. Blame The Fed For The Coming Pension Fund Crisis Senators Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, and Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, sent a letter Monday to Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board Chairman Michael...

August 27, 2019
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27Aug

UK. Public sector to launch ‘mass legal battle’ over pension reforms

Mass legal claims on behalf of teachers and doctors alleging that changes to their pensions in 2015 were discriminatory are being launched against the government. After successfully winning a similar pension case on behalf of judges, the London law firm Leigh Day is preparing employment tribunal cases for public sector workers. The British Medical Association is also coordinating action with doctors over pension reforms that they claim could inflict huge financial losses on individuals by the time they retire....

August 27, 2019
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27Aug

New Zealand. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern firm on keeping Superannuation age at 65

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says if the National Party hadn't stopped contributions to the Superannuation Fund, there'd be no need to discuss raising the Superannuation eligibility age to 67. National announced yesterday it was sticking to its previous promise to raising the Superannuation eligibility age to 67 from 2037 if it were elected to government next year. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told Morning Report: "Our argument of course has always been that if we continue to make contributions to...

August 27, 2019
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27Aug

Japan estimates cast doubt over public pension sustainability

Japan’s government unveiled estimates on Tuesday that showed public pension benefits steadily declining during coming decades, as it prepares to open up a debate on social security reforms needed to support an aging population. Curbing bulging welfare spending is a vital step toward fixing the industrial world’s heaviest debt burden, which is currently more than twice the size of Japan’s $5 trillion economy. While Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has made welfare reform a top priority, it has moved...

August 27, 2019
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27Aug

Three financial experts address retirees’ five most pressing worries about the recession and their retirement funds

That has been the question many retirees and people just a few years from retiring have been asking me since experts started warning about a coming recession. They worry about their retirement accounts as the stock market continues to swing up and down as a result of President Trump’s trade war with China. “As this conflict escalates, it is likely to weigh more and more on the stock market and the economy,” The Washington Post’s Heather Long wrote earlier...

August 27, 2019
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26Aug

South Africa Pensioners Oppose Prescribed Assets Plan

South Africa’s intentions to tap state workers’ pension funds to revive a struggling economy would be strongly opposed, the Sunday Times reports, citing a major trade group on pensions. The state workers’ pension funds lobby group doesn’t trust government investing pension funds to bail out struggling state-owned companies such as utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., said Adamus Stemmet, spokesman for the Association of Monitoring and Advocacy of Government Pensions. The investments wouldn’t yield positive returns, Stemmet told the weekly....

August 26, 2019
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26Aug

UK universities brace for strike action in pensions dispute

British universities are heading towards strike action later this year, after employers insisted on requiring staff to pay higher pension contributions despite union warnings that the move would trigger a ballot on industrial action. Read also UK universities’ pension funding hole doubles to £6.6bn The University and College Union (UCU) said it had rejected an offer by the employers, represented by Universities UK (UUK), to swap limited increases in staff pension contributions for a two-year bar on strike action. The...

August 26, 2019
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26Aug

US. Blame The Fed For The Coming Pension Fund Crisis

Most public and private pensions in the United States are underfunded, many severely so. Back when interest rates floated in a historically normal range, there was not a serious issue of pension underfunding. Ultra-low interest rates have pushed pensions into riskier assets such as corporate equities and bonds. Pension demand for corporate bonds has facilitated a surge of debt-funded buybacks. What happens when pensions are no longer able to keep up their massive procurement of corporate debt? American pensions are...

August 26, 2019
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