September 2021
15Sep

US. The State Pension Funding Gap: Plans Have Stabilized in Wake of Pandemic

The nation’s state retirement systems finished the 2021 fiscal year in their best condition since the Great Recession of 2007-09. According to projections by The Pew Charitable Trusts, the gap between the cost of pension benefits that states have promised their workers and what they have set aside to pay for them dropped in 2021 to its lowest level in more than a decade. Pew estimates that state retirement systems are now over 80% funded for the first time...

September 15, 2021
News, Slider, , , ,
Read more...
15Sep

Study: As a population gets older, automation accelerates

You might think robots and other forms of workplace automation gain traction due to intrinsic advances in technology — that innovations naturally find their way into the economy. But a study co-authored by an MIT professor tells a different story: Robots are more widely adopted where populations become notably older, filling the gaps in an aging industrial work force. “Demographic change — aging — is one of the most important factors leading to the adoption of robotics and other automation...

September 15, 2021
News, Slider,
Read more...
14Sep

UK. Dashboard will not have accurate DB quotations

The Society of Pension Professionals has warned pension dashboards will have to provide illustrative figures to defined benefit members, as it will not be possible to have accurate quotations due to the complexity of current benefit structures. In a report published today (September 13), the industry body made a series of recommendations to the Department of Work and Pensions and the Pensions Dashboard Programme on how estimated retirement income calculations should be approached from the beginning of the project's rollout. Since...

September 14, 2021
News, Slider, , ,
Read more...

May 2021
25May

Pension-Fund Investment in Forestry

By Clark S. Binkley, Fiona Stewart and Samantha Power A forestry investment can include land suitable for growing trees, the trees themselves, or both. The trees can be part of a natural forest or one that has been established artificially by seeding or planting. Natural forest management typically has lower operating costs than plantation forests, but also a lower growth rate. Plantation forests are typically, but not always monocultures. Forestry has long provided opportunities for institutional investors – but the scope...

May 25, 2021
Articles, Books, Investment, Reports, ,
Read more...

March 2021
31Mar

New Zealand. How KiwiSaver could be used to supercharge innovation

KiwiSaver has grown tremendously since it launched in 2007, but it is pretty vanilla. Most investments are lazily thrown into listed stocks and bonds – the scheme is designed that way. We could be using some of this money to invest in such alternatives as startups, scaling successful businesses to go international, and infrastructure that we need, as is done routinely internationally. KiwiSaver is big enough and old enough to ask how we can unleash the power of capital towards the...

March 31, 2021
News, Slider, , ,
Read more...

February 2021
11Feb

India. Will WhatsApp Thrive In Micro-Pension Space, A Road Not Taken By Indian Fintech?

WhatsApp is on its way to rolling out micro-pension products for the Indian masses In spite of a robust fintech ecosystem, no startup has attempted to cater to an underserved Indian market WhatsApp could be facing tough challenges as the low-income population lacks financial awareness and the habit of saving When messaging giant WhatsApp announced its foray into micro-pension products in December 2020, it turned out to be a first-of-its-kind initiative in the Indian fintech space. This is surprising,...

February 11, 2021
News, Slider, , , , ,
Read more...

October 2020

09Oct

New Finance: In Search for Analytical Framework

By Jan Monkiewicz Since the beginning of the century, modern financial systems have been experiencing a period of dynamic change. These changes have caused the uniform fabric on which the systems were based for a long time to become eroded and a multitude of alternative solutions to appear in their place. The existing systems are becoming increasingly heterogeneous and increasingly less transparent. In addition to the traditional financial system based on highly regulated financial intermediaries with a legal monopoly,...

October 9, 2020
Articles, Digital Financial Services, System Sustainability, ,
Read more...
02Oct

AI Human Impact: Toward a Model for Ethical Investing in AI-Intensive Companies

By James Brusseau Does AI conform to humans, or will we conform to AI? An ethical evaluation of AI-intensive companies will allow investors to knowledgeably participate in the decision. The evaluation is built from nine performance indicators that can be analyzed and scored to reflect a technology’s human-centering. When summed, the scores convert into objective investment guidance. The strategy of incorporating ethics into financial decisions will be recognizable to participants in environmental, social, and governance investing, however, this paper...

October 2, 2020
Articles, Investing, ,
Read more...
02Oct

UK. PensionBee and Plaid team up to call for ‘open pensions’

The two fintechs are calling on the FCA to speed up the introduction of Open Finance to help people view their pensions all in one place. Digital pension provider PensionBee and financial API provider Plaid have joined forces to push for an open finance standard within the pension industry. In a report published by the pair yesterday, Plaid and PensionBee are calling for ‘open pensions’ to be made standard, something which they claim will “improve financial decisions”...

October 2, 2020
News, Slider, , ,
Read more...

September 2020

15Sep

Digital financial services

By World Bank Access to affordable financial services is critical for poverty reduction and economic growth. Countries with deeper, more developed financial systems enjoy higher economic growth and larger reductions in poverty and income inequality. Access to financial services also increases opportunities and resilience for the poor, particularly women. Despite this, 65 percent of adults in the world’s poorest economies lack access to even the most basic transaction account that would allow them to send and receive...

September 15, 2020
Books, Digital Financial Services, , ,
Read more...