June 2019

14Jun

Minding the gap between the sexes in Switzerland

In Switzerland, equal rights for women and men are enshrined in the Federal Constitution – which is what voters wanted. But nearly 40 years after the popular vote of June 14, 1981, the goal of equality has yet to be achieved. Here are five key indicators illustrating day-to-day gender inequality in Switzerland. “Men and women have the right to equal pay for work of equal value,” states the constitutional article on equal rightsexternal link. The law also expressly prohibits...

June 14, 2019
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14Jun

South Korea’s Pension Fund to Adopt New Hiring Policy Amid Staff Exodus

South Korea’s National Pension Service (NPS) has reportedly decided to introduce a new hiring policy for its portfolio managers. According to the new policy, one of the largest pension funds in the world now wants to hire fresh talents and nurture them instead of hiring experienced managers as it currently does. To date, the NPS has hired only experienced professionals for portfolio manager positions. Since the pension manages massive assets — about 675 trillion South Korean won ($571 billion)...

June 14, 2019
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14Jun

Bermuda. Athene adopts pension risk analytics platform from RiskFirst

Athene Holding Ltd., one of Bermuda’s leading retirement services companies, has become the first insurer to adopt PFaroe, the pension risk analytics and reporting platform from RiskFirst. Using PFaroe’s on-demand liability and transaction price monitoring services, Athene plans to help sponsors evaluate risk and purchase annuities at the optimal time. “We see real value in moving from monitoring liabilities and insurance prices on an ad hoc basis to a more frequent – even daily – basis,” said Sean Brennan,...

June 14, 2019
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13Jun

Puerto Rico oversight board reaches deal over retiree pensions

Puerto Rico’s federally created financial oversight board said on Wednesday it reached a deal to restructure more than $50 billion in unfunded pension liabilities that includes cuts for some of the bankrupt U.S. commonwealth’s retired government workers. The tentative agreement with a federal court-appointed committee representing more than 167,000 retirees, which the government opposes, helps pave the way for a plan to restructure Puerto Rico’s core government debt. Puerto Rico has been in U.S. District Court since 2017 in...

June 13, 2019
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13Jun

France. Macron to Tackle French State Pensions in Mother-of-All-Reforms

France isn’t done with reforms. That’s the core message Prime Minister Edouard Philippe aimed to get across in Parliament Wednesday. “We have reasons to be proud of the work we’ve done and we have the legitimacy to keep going,” Philippe said in a 66-minute speech laying out what he called “Act II” of Emmanuel Macron’s presidency. “We’ve done a lot in the past two years and we need to do a lot more," he added. "Our enemy is the...

June 13, 2019
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13Jun

Uproar over $185,000 shortfall puts Japan pension reform on hold

A public uproar has forced the government to retract a controversial report claiming that retired couples reliant on public pensions also need sizable savings, but this backpedaling could further delay Japan's much needed reckoning with the overburdened program. The report compiled by a Financial Services Agency council earlier this month showed that a household with a 65-year-old husband and a 60-year-old wife would need an additional 20 million yen ($184,000) in assets if they live another 30 years. The...

June 13, 2019
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13Jun

US retirement accounts are growing, but not fast enough

Vanguard has released its annual How America Saves 2019 report. It’s a snapshot of the state of retirement in America that focuses on defined benefit accounts, which are mostly in the form of 401(k)s. 1. Despite the market downturn in 2018 (the S&P 500 was down about 6%), the average defined contribution plan last year increased 4%, largely because participants were saving more. The increase counted only those who also had accounts in 2017, not new accounts. 2. More...

June 13, 2019
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13Jun

Can Bangladesh develop a national pension system?

A future for Bangladesh’s senior citizens Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, and the eighth-largest by population. The number of people over 60 years of age has been projected to increase from about 9.8 million (6.5% of total population) to 18.1 million (10% of total population) by 2026 and 44.1 million people (20.2% of total population) by 2051 in Bangladesh. The average life expectancy of a Bangladeshi is now...

June 13, 2019
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12Jun

Legal and General launch pension risk blockchain

U.K.-based Legal and General (L&G), the U.K.’s number one retail life insurer, announced it’s launching a blockchain solution for pension risk transfer through Legal and General Reinsurance. The group has more than a trillion pounds ($1.27 trillion) in assets under management. One often hears of large companies with pension deficits. The assets they have accumulated to support their defined benefit pension schemes are less than the liabilities for pension annuities. That’s often the result of investment returns differing...

June 12, 2019
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12Jun

New Trends in Asset Allocation: Mercer Report Takes the Pulse of Retirement Plans across the Globe

Mercer report uncovers asset allocation and investment trends on nearly US$5 trillion1 in assets under management (AUM) from government, corporate, and mandatory pension schemes across Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Malaysia’s Employees Provident Fund (EPF) has increased its foreign equity allocation, and increased efforts to diversify portfolios, including higher exposure to alternatives. Both EPF and government pension fund (KWAP) combined asset allocation maintains a strong bias for domestic equities and Malaysian government fixed income securities....

June 12, 2019
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