December 2018

14Dec

India. Senior Citizens Should Get Meaningful Pension: SC

The Supreme Court on Thursday said that senior citizens should get a meaningful pension to live with dignity, and not just the equivalent of Rs 92 at current value. The apex court said the State was "obligated to ensure" that the right to live with dignity that includes reasonable shelter, health care, clothing and meaningful pension for elderly people without any means was "not only protected but are enforced and made available to all citizens". Noting that in real terms the...

December 14, 2018
News, Slider,
Read more...
14Dec

New Zeland. What contribution rate should I have in order to retire?

More specific guidance is needed from advisers if clients are to have the income they require in retirement. Let us cut to the chase, KiwiSaver was formed to ensure New Zealanders could self-provision for retirement. Its predecessor, NZ Super, which relies on tax payers funding the generation ahead of them, is failing. One need only reference the Westpac-Massey-Ed Centre’s annual Expenditure Guidelines study to see NZ Super’s current “inflation adjusted” payment level does not meet a “no-frills” lifestyle, or The Treasury’s projection...

December 14, 2018
News, Slider,
Read more...
13Dec

US. Why millions of seniors are still working past the age of 65

Retiring comfortably at 65 is now out of reach for millions of Americans. Tom Coomer was a machinist at the aerospace manufacturer McDonnell Douglas for 29 years, but the plant closed one year before he was due to get his full pension. Now 80 years old, he works as a greeter five days a week at a Walmart in Oklahoma. While Coomer and his wife have downsized their lifestyle, it's still hard for them to make ends meet. They're just...

December 13, 2018
News, Slider,
Read more...
13Dec

Is Latin America Prepared for an Aging Population?

Latin America, while still comparatively young, is aging fast. Our research finds that population aging is challenging the fiscal sustainability of public pension and health care systems in the region. Policymakers will need to ensure adequate benefits for the rising share of older people—notably their social acceptability—by supporting formal employment and gradually reforming pension and healthcare systems. Demographic dividend Latin American countries are still younger than most advanced economies, but population aging is expected to accelerate. Today Latin American women have on...

December 13, 2018
News, Slider,
Read more...
13Dec

Aging Japan: Dementia puts financial assets of the elderly at risk

“What’s a microwave?” she asked her husband, Eiichi. Yumiko was in the early stages of dementia, struggling with vocabulary and unable to teach the kimono-dressing classes she had run for 25 years. The difficulty with everyday tasks has made life challenging for her and Eiichi, who has been caring for her since 2008. But she is also unable to deal with her finances - a situation that experts say is increasingly common in fast-ageing Japan and that puts trillions of yen worth...

December 13, 2018
News, Slider,
Read more...
13Dec

US. Pension Risk Transfer Volume Falls

A LIMRA analyst sees strong demand for small and midsize deals. U.S. life insurers reported a small drop in pension plan buyout annuity sales in the third quarter. Pension risk transfer sales fell to $6.3 billion, down from $6.4 billion in the third quarter of 2017, according to survey data from the LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute. The institute bases the survey results on data from 16 companies that share information about their sales of large, single-premium group annuity contracts. Pension risk transfer volume...

December 13, 2018
News, Slider,
Read more...
13Dec

Older Australians living overseas will need to prove they are alive to keep getting pension

Australians aged over 80 who are living overseas will soon have to produce a "proof of life certificate" to continue receiving the pension. From July 1, pensioners will be asked to go to an Australian embassy or consulate every two years to register that they are still alive and entitled to receive a welfare payment. Social Services Minister Paul Fletcher said estimates suggested there had been thousands of cases where a person died while living overseas but continued to receive the...

December 13, 2018
News, Slider,
Read more...
12Dec

US. No, Retirement Plan Participation Isn’t Plummeting

This week the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA) published a short article claiming that “New Data Shows Drop in Retirement Coverage for All Income Levels,” contributing to the narrative that Americans face a “retirement crisis” that government must step in to address. In reality, the article should have been titled “Bad Data Show Drop in Retirement Coverage for All Income Levels,” because the decline in retirement plan coverage reported by SCEPA is almost surely a problem with...

December 12, 2018
News, Slider,
Read more...
12Dec

Sustainability is about survival

As we report in this issue, investing is no longer seen as just a good cause, but at once a golden opportunity and a global imperative. Speaking at the UNDP’s Social Good Summit in Geneva in October, Marcus Neto, director of the UNDP’s Istanbul International Centre for Private Sector in Development, spoke repeatedly and unambiguously of a “pot of gold” waiting for investors in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. That doesn’t sound like the kind of language familiar from...

December 12, 2018
News, Slider
Read more...
12Dec

UK watchdog orders shake up of advisors to pension trustees

Poor competition in the market for advice to pension fund trustees has resulted in "substantial customer detriment", Britain's Competition and Markets Authority said on Wednesday. UK pension schemes have total assets of 1.6 trillion pounds ($2.04 trillion), and the dominant advisors are Aon, Mercer, and Willis Towers Watson. Half of pension schemes buy fiduciary management that makes investment decisions on their behalf, from their existing investment consultant. It announced a range of reforms to the investment consultancy and fiduciary management sector, saying...

December 12, 2018
News, Slider,
Read more...