October 2020

09Oct

Japan. An Unconventional Pension Fund Bets on Volatility’s Return

A small Japanese pension fund known for its aggressive bets on alternative investments is changing tack. The West Japan Machinery Pension Fund has an unconventional strategy with 90% of assets invested in the likes of loans and private equity. While still committed to alternatives and disavowing sovereign bonds, it has been pivoting away from low-liquidity assets such as PE and infrastructure debt, said chief investment officer Yoshisuke Kiguchi. “Instead, we have recently increased convertible bond arbitrage quite a lot...

October 9, 2020
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September 2020

22Sep

Beijing Taking Measures To Address China’s Upcoming Retirement Savings Deficit

China has been leveraging the domestic interest rate as an integral part of its monetary policy since the opening up of the bond market in 2019, increasingly allowing international investors to hold municipal bonds. Read also Canada. OSFI launches discussion on tech risks to pensions, other federal financial institutions Further into its liberalization of the market, China also allowed foreign capital to play a part in its funds market from earlier this year. Read also Switzerland. Credit Suisse pension...

September 22, 2020
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22Sep

Japan’s new PM could seek to improve GPIF oversight

Japan’s newly elected prime minister Yoshihide Suga may seek to form an independent board to oversee the Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF). However, experts said that it may not happen at least until his re-election in October next year. Read also Japan proposal on contribution limits could hurt The debate about whether the GPIF should have an independent board instead of coming under the oversight of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) started several years ago, with many...

September 22, 2020
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21Sep

Japan proposal on contribution limits could hurt

Japan's regulators are moving to put "fairer" contribution limits for corporate defined contribution plans in place this year but analysts warn their proposed changes could just as easily shrink Japan's DC market as expand it. Along the way, some of Japan's biggest corporate plan sponsors could be forced to restructure the mix of DC and defined benefit retirement plans they offer to employees. At issue are current rules that mandate across-the-board reductions in DC contribution ceilings for companies that...

September 21, 2020
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August 2020

13Aug

Japanese head of world’s biggest pension fund looks beyond sovereign debt for future returns

The head of the world’s largest pension fund said he is looking beyond the safety of sovereign debt as an era of falling rates forces even the most conservative of investors to rethink playbooks. Masataka Miyazono, the president of Japan’s mammoth Government Pension Investment Fund with ¥162.1 trillion ($1.5 trillion) in assets, said the fund is looking at a range of foreign debt as it seeks steady returns in pandemic-riven markets after swinging from a record loss to...

August 13, 2020
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July 2020

27Jul

Japanese Trust Funds Align with Global Trends on FX Settlement Risk

Trust funds in Japan have started focusing on mitigating FX settlement risk, to which they have long been exposed. This article explains the change in focus and the factors behind this. Following 2013 guidance from the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) recommending the use of payment-versus-payment (PvP) settlement and netting where appropriate, Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA), along with the Bank of Japan (BoJ), convened Japanese wholesale FX market participants to promote PvP settlement and assist the industry...

July 27, 2020
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10Jul

Japan’s Deadly Combination: Climate Change and an Aging Society

The forecast was dire: close to nine inches of rain in a single day. Officials in Kuma, a village on the banks of a fast-moving river in southwestern Japan, urged everyone to evacuate. Yet inside the Senjuen nursing home, the 70 residents were left in place. The decision proved disastrous. The rain that fell early Saturday was even worse than expected, a blinding downpour that soon inundated the village’s streets. Caretakers in the nursing home, which lacked an elevator,...

July 10, 2020
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03Jul

World’s Largest Pension Fund Loses $165 Billion in Worst Quarter

The world’s biggest pension fund posted a record loss in the first three months of 2020 after the coronavirus pandemic sparked a global market rout in the period. Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund lost 11%, or 17.7 trillion yen ($164.7 billion), in the three months ended March, it said in Tokyo on Friday. Read also Raiding the pot: how the pandemic has deepened the pensions crisis The decline in value was the steepest based on comparable data back to April...

July 3, 2020
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June 2020
22Jun

Lawmakers Offer Help to Japanese Banks Battling Fintech Firms

Japanese ruling-party lawmakers are looking to make it easier for banks to expand into different industries, a step that could help traditional lenders push back against tech rivals. The Liberal Democratic Party’s financial policy research panel wants to amend the banking law next year to relax limits on lenders’ lines of business as well as their investments in non-financial firms. The proposal, released last week, didn’t specify which areas banks might be allowed to enter. Japan’s government has been...

June 22, 2020
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18Jun

Japan Mulls Resubmitting Legislation to Raise Retirement Age of Civil Servants

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government will consider resubmitting legislation to raise the retirement age for civil servants, its top spokesman said on Wednesday, after public backlash prompted the withdrawal of draft legislation. During the parliamentary session that ended on Wednesday, the government abandoned its push to enact legislation that would raise prosecutors' retirement age to 65 from 63, and let the cabinet defer retirement of senior prosecutors for a further three years. Critics and others argued it would...

June 18, 2020
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