November 2017

24Nov

Australia. Criminals rorting millions from welfare system from behind bars

More than 20,000 jailed criminals have been busted illegally claiming a total of more than $16.5 million in taxpayer-funded benefits. The Herald Sun can reveal the federal government has been conducting sweeps of the nation’s prisons over the past four years to identify those criminals receiving benefits behind bars. It already costs taxpayers $110,000 to keep one prisoner locked up for a year. While inside, they are not allowed to receive welfare payments — but many fail to inform Centrelink that they have...

November 24, 2017
News, Slider
Read more...
03Nov

OECD: Australian retirement most exposed to share risk but returns not stellar

Australian superannuation funds have a much higher exposure to volatile share markets than almost any comparable country without earning higher returns, according to new figures. The OECD’s annual Pension Markets in Focus report has found that Australia’s pension (superannuation) system had 51 per cent of its assets in shares in June 2016, more than twice the weighting of Canada, with 23 per cent. The US had 31 per cent, the UK 14 per cent and Denmark 22 per cent. Conversely, Australian pension...

November 3, 2017
News, Slider
Read more...

October 2017

17Oct

Australia’s ANZ Sells Pension Business to IOOF for $766 Million

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd has sold its pension unit to IOOF Holdings for A$975 million ($766 million), joining the rush of Australian banks quitting non-core and scandal-hit divisions to boost capital. The deal fell short of a total exit of ANZ's insurance and wealth management operations which the bank had flagged a year earlier, and which had been expected to fetch about A$4 billion. But Atlas Funds Management chief investment officer David Hugh, who owns ANZ shares, said...

October 17, 2017
News, Slider
Read more...
17Oct

Australia. Ageing regions increasingly reliant on the pension.

Age discrimination in the workforce needs to end to combat a growing aged pension crisis in the country's oldest regions, according to the Regional Australia Institute. A RAI report has found there is lower growth, lower incomes and a higher welfare services bill in aging regions which are increasingly reliant on the pension. The report said some regions, including Victor Harbor, Port-Macquarie-Hastings and East Gippsland, already had more than 20 per cent of their populations reliant on the age pension. The 2016 census showed while...

October 17, 2017
News, Slider
Read more...
16Oct

Australia. Robo-advisers to expand into retirement advice

ASAP chief executive Jim Hennington said he expects the scope of advice that’s provided by automated advice providers to SMSFs will further expand over the next year. “At the moment, [it’s] very much focused on the transactions that accountants tend to get deeply involved with such as establishing an SMSF, purchasing property and LRBAs, and setting up SMSF pensions,” said Mr Hennington. He expects that automated advice will soon expand beyond this, however, into services such as retirement advice. “Over time automated...

October 16, 2017
News, Slider
Read more...
10Oct

Global Funds Eye Australia’s $1.8 Trillion Pension Pool

More global fund managers are setting up shop in Australia, drawn to the nation’s A$2.3 trillion ($1.8 trillion) pension savings pool and new local investment opportunities. THL Credit Inc., an alternative credit manager based in Boston, said in September that it hired a director in Australia. New York-based credit hedge fund GoldenTree Asset Management opened an office in Sydney last month after appointing a local managing director. Oaktree Capital Management, which already manages Australian pension money, headed Down Under last...

October 10, 2017
News, Slider
Read more...

September 2017

06Sep

Australia. Pensioners claim rebates on $31 million worth of rates

Canberra pensioners have received rebates on $31 million worth of rates in the past three years, on land worth a cumulative $14.4 billion dollars. More than 18,000 property owners are using the pensioners rebate scheme for rates, figures revealed in an answer to a question on notice in the ACT Legislative Assembly. However the number of applications for rates deferrals on the basis of hardship have doubled on the same time last year, after the ACT government changed the formula for calculating...

September 6, 2017
News, Slider
Read more...

August 2017

28Aug

Australia. Time for longevity risk-pooling: Mercer

Mercer consultants have told a gathering of institutional investors and advisers they must incorporate longevity pooling into portfolios to provide the peace of mind retirees want. Mercer Australia senior actuarial partner Dr David Knox argued that investment managers need to take “an integrated, more holistic approach than just concentrating on investment portfolios”. He said longevity pooling should be incorporated into retirement income portfolios in a way “that maintains the growth ratio, the exposure to growth assets, and the expected return, and...

August 28, 2017
News, Slider
Read more...
22Aug

73% of Aussies plan to use the Age Pension

Most Australians (63 per cent) do not have a plan for how they will live in retirement and 73 per cent plan to use the Age Pension when they retire, according to Sunsuper. Sunsuper’s latest report surveyed over 1,000 Australians and found that 30 per cent of people never thought about their retirement and four per cent did not care about retiring. The remaining 66 per cent had vastly mixed feelings. Those who felt positively (33 per cent) about retiring were...

August 22, 2017
News, Slider
Read more...
07Aug

The existential challenge of AI

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are reshaping the institutional investment management industry from all angles. Over the last decade, high-speed automated trading has already revolutionised the day-to-day operation of financial markets and robo-advice has revamped the way wealth managers engage with clients. AI is upending the profit models of many companies in institutional investment portfolios. Within funds, many workers with repetitive and numbers-based jobs are set to be replaced. But the biggest fallout on superannuation and pension managers...

August 7, 2017
News
Read more...