February 2019

05Feb

South Africa. Board walkout at PIC may risk investments

A deepening crisis at South Africa’s biggest money manager the Public Investment Corporation is threatening to cast a pall over the economy and throw into doubt potential deals, including the bailout of one of the nation’s largest clothing retailers.Nine PIC directors quit on Friday, saying the institution overseeing the pension funds of most South African civil servants has entered a “state of paralysis” following misconduct claims against some board members. Those included questionable investments in the bonds of cash-strapped state...

February 5, 2019
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05Feb

UK. Self-invested personal pensions (SIPP) complaints up 37% on last year

The number of new self-invested personal pension (Sipp) cases investigated by the Financial Ombudsman Service in the first three quarters of this year has already exceeded the number received in the whole of the 2017/18 financial year.The latest set of quarterly data published by the ombudsman today (February 5), showed the number of new Sipp cases had reached 2802 in the nine months between April and December 2018.This was a 37 per cent jump from the 2051 cases received in...

February 5, 2019
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05Feb

JP Morgan takes minority stake in Smart Pension

No financial details were disclosed. In terms of the bigger picture, this brings Smart’s total funds raised to date to £50 million. Will Wynne, Smart Pension co-founder and MD, says: “In October we won our first international competitive tender [with New Ireland Assurance] to build a savings technology platform in Ireland. This gives us an opportunity to demonstrate how our unique proprietary dynamic technology is plugging a huge gap in the workplace savings platform market, and performing on a global...

February 5, 2019
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05Feb

Australia. We need generational change on retirement incomes

Most retirees are better off than we previously thought. Public policy should reflect this. It's been a quarter of a century since the Keating government introduced a retirement-income package in 1992 and Vince Fitzgerald reported on national savings in 1993. For a generation, Australian retirement incomes policy has been dominated by their assumptions.We've had a generation of policy thinkers who assumed that people won't have enough money in retirement. Many fear retirees will be financially insecure, and...

February 5, 2019
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04Feb

Thousands of Spaniards protest for better pensions in Madrid

Thousands of older Spaniards are marching through downtown Madrid to demand better public pensions.Many protesters on Saturday held up homemade signs, including some that read “We are all pensioners” and “I’m old, not stupid.”Retiree groups and unions have held protests across Spain during recent months to demand that the government make sure that pension payouts rise in line with inflation. They argue that the 0.25 percent increase in 2017 was insufficient.Isabel Perez, 67, says “this is a fight that...

February 4, 2019
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04Feb

New Zealand. Time to address our rapidly ageing population

It's time for the Government to muster the courage to introduce policies appropriate for a rapidly ageing population, argues the University of Auckland's Dr M. Claire DaleThe Retirement Commissioner has a statutory obligation to produce a report on retirement income policies every three years. This year’s review has had little fanfare so far and the terms of reference have only just been released. The report is expected by December 2019, which allows little time to properly examine the pressing issue of...

February 4, 2019
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04Feb

Nigeria. N8.4trn Pension investment to promote industry – PENCOM

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has clarified that pension funds are not lent out but invested in FGN Bonds, Treasury Bills and other financial instruments yielding profit over time.The funds which stood as at N8, 499,891.97 trillion as at November 2018 have depleted through borrowing to corporate entities, states among others.A document exclusively obtained from PenCom by Blueprint showed the FGN Bonds gulped N4, 439,561.29 trillion, representing 52.23 per cent of the total amount, while investments in Treasury Bills amounted to...

February 4, 2019
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01Feb

Ireland. Deficits in traditional company pension plans rise to €1.6bn

DEFICITS in traditional company pension plans of quoted companies rose last year, in a move that could put pressure on the schemes. The black holes in the defined benefit pension schemes of Irish listed companies rose by 20pc last year, according to data compiled by Mercer. The projected deficit rose from €1.3bn in 2017 to €1.6bn at the end of 2018, largely due to poor equity market performance at the end of last year. With many of Ireland’s largest...

February 1, 2019
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01Feb

US. New York Imposes $19.75 Million in Fines in Pension Risk Transfer Case

The New York State Department of Financial Services is imposing $19.75 million in fines on Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, a unit of MetLife Inc., in connection with allegations of pension plan administration problems. MetLife agreed to pay the fines, pay $189 million in restitution to affected pension plan participants in New York state and elsewhere, and develop proposals for ways it could do better in the future in a consent order. Michel Khalaf, the president of MetLife’s U.S. business,...

February 1, 2019
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January 2019

31Jan

UN pension’s journey in sustainability

The Office of Investment Management (OIM) at the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund believes portfolios that integrate material ESG metrics into their investment decision-making process, supported by active engagement, have the potential to provide returns that are superior to those of conventional portfolios while exhibiting lower risk over the long term. This view is supported by several published academic studies and our own research. Journey on the path of sustainable investing The United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund...

January 31, 2019
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