March 2021
24Mar

Sweden wants to tax pensioners in Portugal

Swedish Parliament is set to vote on unilaterally ending an agreement with Portugal to not tax citizens receiving their pensioners here Following in the footsteps of Finland in 2018, Stockholm now also wants to see its expat pensioners in Portugal taxed as they would be in their home countries. Portugal recently changed its non-habitual resident regime to enforce a blanket ten percent tax on foreign pensions, but Sweden argues this is inadequate and not in accordance with an agreement signed with...

March 24, 2021
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23Mar

ESG Disclosure Rules From Europe Challenge U.S. Fund Managers

Scores of U.S. fund managers are being forced to comply with sweeping new European rules on climate and other sustainable-finance issues, requiring them to disclose the potential harm their investments could do to the environment and society. Fund companies including Vanguard Group, BlackRock Inc. and State Street Corp. that sell investment products in the European Union come under the new rules that took effect this month, though details are still being finalized. “There are many issues to be resolved, it is...

March 23, 2021
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23Mar

UK. Pensions dashboard roll-out in 2023 ‘under threat’

The target date of 2023 for the roll-out of the pensions dashboards is under threat from a lack of clarity, the Society of Pension Professionals has warned. The lack of clarity and complexity of the dashboard roll-out is such that it might be impossible to provide some savers with a "single number" for their benefits. Read also UK. Emerging passive investing risks a new concern James Riley, president, and Paul McGlone, immediate past president, wrote to the Pensions Dashboards Programme detailing a list...

March 23, 2021
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23Mar

Lessons defined benefit plans can learn from last year

The 2020 funded status of the 100 largest corporate defined benefit (DB) plans by assets rose only slightly as double-digit equity returns were offset by a decline to record-low discount rates, according to a proprietary analysis conducted by J.P. Morgan Asset Management. The report, written by Michael Buchenholz, head of U.S. pension strategy, institutional strategy and analytics, reveals the benefits that came from rebalancing liability-driven investing (LDI) portfolios during the market volatility of last year. He first points out that...

March 23, 2021
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23Mar

US. Small employers have new federal incentives to offer worker retirement benefits

There has been a dizzying array of major legislative programs passed by Congress over the last few years that have impacted small and midsize businesses, particularly in response to the coronavirus pandemic. But one that seems to have gone under the radar — perhaps because it was passed pre-pandemic in Dec. 2019, and went into effect Jan. 1, 2020 — is the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement, or SECURE Act, which tries to help more American workers save...

March 23, 2021
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23Mar

UK. PensionBee cuts gender pay gap to 4%

PensionBee has reduced its median hourly gender pay gap to 4 per cent, in line with its aim of achieving equality with a variance of 5 per cent permitted due to the overall size of the employee base. The pension provider, which also noted it had a median bonus pay gap of 0 per cent among its staff, said it had achieved gender employment parity across all levels of its business, while figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS)...

March 23, 2021
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22Mar

UK. Emerging passive investing risks a new concern

Investment consultants around the globe are asking their pension fund clients to think carefully about two very real concerns that have emerged in passive investing: ESG-related and concentration risks. Some pension fund clients have heeded their advice, reconsidering whether they should be implementing some kind of ESG tilt to their benchmarks and in other cases, looking to take portions of the allocation to an active manager instead. "We are … having exactly these conversations: How much of this risk are people...

March 22, 2021
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22Mar

Colombia govt presents capital markets bill

The government of center-right Colombian President Iván Duque has presented a capital markets bill. Key aims of the draft legislation are modernizing the payments system and boosting financial inclusion, accelerating development of the local capital market, modernizing parts of the financial system and strengthening institutional frameworks. The bill comes after experts put the sector under the microscope and submitted their recommendations. The proposed reform impacts the insurance sector, via the modernization and overhaul of current rules, such as implementation of a risk-based...

March 22, 2021
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19Mar

UK. Pension longevity risk transfers reach record-breaking £55.8bn in 2020

Longevity risk transfers by UK pension schemes reached a record level of £55.8bn in 2020, rising above the £51.6bn completed the year before, analysis from LCP and Mercer has shown. Total buy-in and buyout volumes were £31.7bn, the second largest ever recorded in a single year but behind the £43.8bn bumper volumes racked up in 2019, with the record-breaking year instead being driven by longevity swaps reaching £24.1bn. Legal & General (L&G) had a 24 per cent market share, followed by...

March 19, 2021
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19Mar

US. $35 Trillion in Retirement Savings Tells a Tale of Two Economies

New data published by the Investment Company Institute (ICI) shows total U.S. retirement assets grew to $34.9 trillion as of December 31, which is up 7.5% from the end of the third quarter of the year and up 9.3% overall for last year. With such strong growth for the year, the ICI reports, retirement assets accounted for a third of all household financial assets in the United States at the end of December. The ICI update shows that assets in...

March 19, 2021
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