August 2018

13Aug

UK pension funds could face legal action over climate risk, ClientEarth warns

ClientEarth has written to 14 of the UK's biggest pension funds warning they could face legal action unless they properly take account of risks to their investment portfolios posed by climate change. On Friday the green lawyer organisation wrote to the Shell Contributory Pension Fund, as well as the staff pension schemes of Tesco, Aviva, Lloyds Bank and HBOS, highlighting its "concern that a failure to think strategically about climate change may create risk for beneficiaries". "We are concerned that you,...

August 13, 2018
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10Aug

Australian inquiry hears top pension fund defend ad spend, NAB apology

Australia’s largest pension fund on Thursday defended using members’ money to bankroll a marketing campaign that depicted the country’s biggest banks as foxes aiming to take a larger share of the country’s A$2.6 trillion savings pool. AustralianSuper Chief Executive Ian Silk, the most senior financial sector executive to appear at the year-long Royal Commission inquiry, said the A$500,000 ($371,050) spent on a TV ad depicting a fox being let into a hen house by a man dressed in a suit,...

August 10, 2018
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10Aug

Why Innovation And Regulation Should Work Together

If there is one single matter that worries tech leaders today it is the difficulty in conciliating innovation and regulation. Most companies, from tech giants to startups, are still trying to adjust to the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and yet more of the same is coming. The next step will be the adoption of the EU’s ePrivacy Regulation, which will be published toward the end of 2018 or early 2019. Recently, lawmakers signed the California Consumer Privacy Act...

August 10, 2018
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10Aug

US. How Automation Will Affect Unfunded Pension Liabilities

In 2016, Deloitte Consulting and Oxford University did a study of public employees in the United Kingdom and estimated that up to 16% (almost 1 million jobs) could be eliminated by automation in the next twelve years. I think this is a wild underestimation. In the U.S. military, we call it the tooth to tail ratio—how many people does it take in the rear (the “tail”), to keep the individual fighter locating, closing with, and destroying the enemy (the “tooth”)....

August 10, 2018
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10Aug

UK. Pensions dashboard to be debated in Parliament

“The dashboard really needs to happen if the government wants people to save enough for a decent retirement income. We can’t stop pensions being confusing and a turn off but we can make it easier to get all the information in one place and that would surely help. "The practical difficulties are not to be underestimated and occupational schemes are struggling to improve their own data quality. However, if the risks are to be transferred to individuals then we have...

August 10, 2018
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09Aug

China. New pension target securities funds get the green light

China has just approved 14 Chinese asset managers to float pension target securities investment funds, a move to improve A-share market liquidity and offer the nation's middle-income earners more diversified pension management solutions. China Asset Management Co Ltd, China Southern Asset Management Co Ltd, Bosera Asset Management Co Ltd, E Fund Management Co Ltd and 10 other asset management companies became the first batch to receive regulatory approval, according to the China Securities Regulatory Commission on Monday. People close to China...

August 9, 2018
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09Aug

US. Few in Temporary or Alternative Jobs Have Access to Employer-Provided Retirement Plans

Contingent workers—those who provide services on a short-term or temporary basis—are much less likely than traditional workers to have a retirement plan at work, according to data released recently by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). According to the bureau, 23.4 percent of contingent workers were eligible for—or had access to—employer-sponsored pension or retirement plans in 2017. This is about half the rate for more permanent or traditional workers, among whom 47.6 percent were eligible for an employer-sponsored plan....

August 9, 2018
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09Aug

Why the World’s Biggest Pension Fund Should Buy More Junk Bonds

A former senior economist at the Federal Reserve suggests that the world’s largest pension fund should step out of its comfort zone. Yoshio Nozawa, who researched corporate bond spreads for the Fed over the past five years, said Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund and its peers should buy more high-yield bonds and alternative assets such as real estate. The pension fund’s long-term performance of its 158.6 trillion yen ($1.43 trillion) in assets is more important than quarterly results, he said. “Investors...

August 9, 2018
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08Aug

US. The stealth pension mortgage on your house

States with unfunded public employee retirement obligations will have to rely on real estate property as their ultimate collateral to deal with the risk, writes experts on The Wall Street Journal. "The affluent can escape sales and income taxes by moving to a new state—but real estate stays behind," explain the experts. "Property values must ultimately support the obligations that politicians have promised, even if those obligations aren’t properly funded... Whether or not unfunded obligations are paid with property...

August 8, 2018
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08Aug

Thought-Leading Fintech Session Predicts The Future Is Chat-Bots

It’s not often that thought-leaders gather around a table, but that’s exactly what the University of Essex and insurance industry disrupters Hood Group set out to do. Just last month they pulled together industry leaders to talk about cyber security, how we analyse our data and waves in artificial intelligence. And although top-name specialists from Microsoft, Filament, Profusion, and Signal Media attended, the real buzzword of the day was ‘chat-bot’ as they discussed the implications these handy automated new teams...

August 8, 2018
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