January 2021

21Jan

UK. Pension bill passes last hurdle

The Pension Schemes Bill is to receive Royal Assent and become law imminently after being approved by the House of Lords in the final stage of its parliamentary journey. The bill managed to avoid a round of parliamentary ping pong after peers accepted the House of Commons amendments in a hearing yesterday (January 19). Also Read: Thousands of UK savers advised to give up final-salary pensions It was reintroduced to the House of Lords at the beginning of last year...

January 21, 2021
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21Jan

US. Pandemic Puts More Households at Risk in Retirement

The National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI), calculated every three years, measures the share of American households that are at risk of not being able to maintain their pre-retirement standard of living in retirement. “Since the Great Recession, the NRRI has shown that even if households work to age 65 and annuitize all their financial assets, including the receipts from reverse mortgages on their homes, roughly half of households are at risk,” according to the Center for Retirement Research at...

January 21, 2021
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20Jan

Nigeria: Old Soldiers At War Over Unpaid 20-Month Pension Arrears

As VP, others disown president of ex-servicemen welfare association A few days ago, the President of military veterans of the Association of Ex-Service Men and Family Welfare, MWO, Anthony Agbas, led some aggrieved members to the Federal Ministry of Finance, Abuja, to protest non-payment of their 20-month pension arrears. The protesters who appealed to the Federal Government to approve the payment of minimum wage arrears accruing to them from 2019 till date, demanded end to all deductions on the...

January 20, 2021
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20Jan

Hong Kong’s jobless rate hits 16-year high

Hong Kong's jobless rate hit a 16-year high in the October-December period as the fourth wave of the COVID-19 outbreak further compounded the labor market situation, official data showed Tuesday. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose from 6.3 percent in the September-November period to 6.6 percent in the October-December period, the Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government said in a press release. Meanwhile, the underemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.4 percent, showed...

January 20, 2021
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19Jan

UK. Cushon unveils net-zero pension plan

Cushon, the fintech workplace savings disrupter, today announces that it has launched the world’s first net zero pension. Cushon’s pension is the first of its kind in that it is Net Zero now - not later - unlike competitors in the market who have long-reaching targets to achieve the same by 2030 or even 2050. The fund will have a management fee of just 0.15%, while offering highly competitive returns without sacrificing performance. Cushon’s Net Zero pension will enable...

January 19, 2021
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13Jan

US Pension Spending Supports $1.3 Trillion in Economic Output

While public and private defined benefit (DB) pensions are often criticized by politicians and executives as being too expensive to support, a new report from the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS) highlights the major impact pensions have on the US’s economic output. According to the report, private and public sector DB pensions in the US generated $1.3 trillion in total economic output in 2018, supported nearly 7 million US jobs, and added nearly $192 billion to federal, state,...

January 13, 2021
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13Jan

U.K. corporate funds finish 2020 with increased deficits

The total deficit of U.K. defined benefit funds covered by the Pension Protection Fund's 7800 index increased 9.6% in December, to £86.4 billion ($117.3 billion). The deficit was £78.8 billion at the end of November. Deficits also worsened for the year ended Dec. 31, from £10.9 billion, said an update Tuesday by the London-based PPF. The PPF is the lifeboat fund for the defined benefit plans of insolvent U.K. companies. The funding ratio of the corporate pension plans worsened...

January 13, 2021
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12Jan

US. Strong End to 2020 Puts DB Plan Funded Status Back to Where It Started the Year

The funded status of the nation’s largest corporate pension plans started and finished last year at the same level, as declining interest rates caused pension obligations to grow, offsetting gains from investments in equities and bonds, according to an analysis by Willis Towers Watson. Willis Towers Watson examined pension plan data for 366 Fortune 1000 companies that sponsor U.S. defined benefit (DB) plans and have a December fiscal-year-end date. Results indicate that the aggregate pension funded status is estimated...

January 12, 2021
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12Jan

A game changer for social protection? Six reflections on COVID-19 and the future of cash transfers

By The World Bank There is little doubt that the magnitude of the social protection response to COVID-19 is of historical proportions. According to our research on measures taken by 215 countries and territories, at least $800 billion have been invested in social protection in the past nine months, a level 22% higher than during the great recession of 2008–09. This amounts to more than 1,400 social protection measures, of which about one-third took the form of cash transfers reaching over 1.1...

January 12, 2021
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11Jan

UK. Nest plans bold expansion into private markets

Nest, one of the UK’s largest workplace pension schemes with 10m members, is planning an aggressive push into private markets which could “comfortably” exceed a fifth of its entire £13bn investment portfolio. Nest has about 9 per cent in private markets, including 6 per cent in private credit, with the remainder in direct commercial real estate. By the first quarter of next year, it aims to raise its private market holdings to about 15 per cent by expanding its...

January 11, 2021
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