January 2018

05Jan

US. Pension Fund Members Don’t Know Their Plans Are Underfunded: Study

U.S. public pension fund members are generally unaware that their pension is underfunded and of the risk this poses, according to a survey released Thursday by Spectrem Group. The study also reveals a wide gap between how members want their pension funds managed and the actual approach many managers take. The survey, conducted online in the second half of November, compared CalPERS and NYC Retirement Systems (NYC Funds) against a “national” group, comprising individuals from the New York State Common Retirement...

January 5, 2018
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05Jan

Canada. Aon survey finds financial health of defined benefit pension plans ends 2017 near decade-long highs

Aon’s Median Solvency Ratio at end of Q4 2017 stood at 99.2% Pension plans’ financial strength positions them well to manage liabilities in 2018 Capping a year that saw the financial health of Canadian defined benefit pension plans reach levels not seen in more than a decade, plan solvency in the fourth quarter of 2017 maintained the trend and remained near the post-recession high set in Q3, according to Aon’s latest quarterly Median Solvency Ratio survey. Read more @GloblalNewswire

January 5, 2018
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05Jan

Deciding Between a Lump Sum or Monthly Pension Payments

Retirement planning was not always as complicated as it is today. There was a time when 30 years of service was rewarded with a golden watch and a lifetime pension. Today fewer and fewer employers are offering pensions and the ones who do are looking for ways to reduce the long-term obligations associated with pension plans. One of the strategies that employers are using to reduce these long-term obligations is lump sum buyouts. A lump sum buyout is an offer...

January 5, 2018
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05Jan

US. How to out-fox Congress when it comes to retirement savings

There’s plenty of stressful news these days, and by and large I’m used to hearing or reading about unpleasant developments. But I was particularly alarmed by a report this fall that Congress was considering drastic cutbacks in the contribution limits to 401(k) and similar retirement plans. Currently, the maximum annual contribution to such plans is $18,500 ($24,500 for workers age 50 and older). These contributions are tax-deferred, meaning the money isn’t taxed until it is withdrawn, presumably after retirement when workers...

January 5, 2018
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04Jan

China. More provinces mull entrusted pension investment: official

Three provinces and one autonomous region are planning for entrusted pension investment to deal with mounting payment pressure, a social security official said Wednesday. Gansu, Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces as well as Tibet Autonomous Region are considering entrusting some of their pension funds, totaling 150 billion yuan (23.05 billion U.S. dollars), to the National Council for Social Security Fund (NCSSF) for professional investment, according to Tang Xiaoli, an official of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. China is facing...

January 4, 2018
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04Jan

Canadian pensions fared well in 2017 on stock markets’ strength: Mercer

Defined-benefit pension plans in Canada generally ended 2017 in better financial condition than they've experienced for most of the past decade, according to figures released Wednesday by Mercer. The international pension consulting firm's Canadian index of pension health – based on a hypothetical, representative fund – stood at 106 per cent on Dec. 29, up from 102 per cent at the beginning of the year and a dismal 70 per cent after the 2008-09 financial crisis. "Equity markets had crashed and...

January 4, 2018
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04Jan

US. Tax Reform Results in Only Minor Changes for Retirement Plans

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act made significant changes to the tax code and will have a significant impact on businesses and individual taxpayers. However, although initial proposals included potentially significant changes to employer-sponsored retirement plans, the impact of the final bill on employer sponsored retirement plans will be relatively minor. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the Act), which was signed into law on December 22, 2017, represents the most sweeping overhaul of the tax code in decades and...

January 4, 2018
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03Jan

Philippines moving toward aging population: POPCOM

The number of people aged 60 and above in the Philippines is expected to grow this year, latest projections from the Commission on Population (POPCOM) show. The number of elderly Filipinos or those over 60 years old is projected to increase by 0.23 percent over 2017 and will most likely be over 8 million Filipino senior citizens by the end of the year, POPCOM said. This will constitute 8.2 percent of the country's total population. Of this figure, 5 million will...

January 3, 2018
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03Jan

Should Pension Funds Invest in Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is largely unregulated, “very volatile,” difficult to hold — and should be included in institutional investors’ portfolios, according to a research paper by a hedge fund consultant and pension fund investor. The case for investing in Bitcoin comes from Jim Kyung-Soo Liew, a finance professor at Johns Hopkins’ Carey Business School and chief executive officer of SoKat Consulting, and Levar Hewlett, a quantitative risk management associate at the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System. In a paper posted last month on research...

January 3, 2018
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02Jan

Insurers adapting to ageing Hong Kong and China with policies that cover longer lives

Ageing populations in Hong Kong and mainland China are leading the insurance industry to extend the age range of life products and to include cover for more diseases and for mental illness, according to a senior executive at reinsurer Swiss Re. Robert Burr, the managing director and head of life and health reinsurance client markets in Asia, told the South China Morning Post in an interview that statistics showed 25 per cent of people born today would be able to live to...

January 2, 2018
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