August 2025
08Aug

Optimization Algorithms for Pension Asset Allocation Under Market Volatility

By Akshay Sharma & Satish Kabade Pension fund organizations function as essential financial entities that protect employee retirement funds to provide complete and punctual pension distributions. Pension fund effectiveness through asset distribution determines how well a fund meets its future obligations. Traditional methods of portfolio optimization align with the Modern Portfolio Theory through the Markowitz model to help determine asset allocation by defining the relationship between return and risk. These static modeling approaches fail to fulfill their purpose in real...

August 8, 2025
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01Aug

Competition Among Dutch Pension Funds: Is there Any?

By Jacob Antoon Bikker & Jeroen Meringa This paper adds to the literature by analysing for the first time the functioning of the Dutch pension funds market from a competition or efficiency perspective. Of course, competition is severely limited on this highly regulated market. The analyses focus on a key property of well-functioning markets: the reward of efficiency. The conclusion can be drawn that in the market for pension funds efficiency is indeed rewarded, up to a certain level. New...

August 1, 2025
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July 2025
31Jul

Kenya. Retirement: Strategic partnerships critical in growing pension savings

Retirement benefits accumulated by Kenyan workers over the years hit an estimated total of Sh2.3 trillion last year, equivalent to nearly 15 per cent of Kenya’s GDP, underscoring the importance of this critical sector. With the inflation always competing to erode workers' savings, retirement benefits service providers are under pressure to preserve their clients’ wealth. The industry’s assets under management have recorded a 10.7 per cent compounded annual growth rate in the past ten years, from Sh800 million in 2015. This...

July 31, 2025
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25Jul

State of the nation: DB endgames – where are we now and what’s next?

By Laura McLaren & Lauren Branney  For those managing defined benefit (DB) pension schemes, it’s a pivotal and exciting time. The pensions landscape has changed significantly in recent years, opening up new strategic possibilities. We’ve seen record-breaking activity in the bulk annuity market and growing innovation in consolidation, and alternative risk transfer, leading to new settlement options. We’ve also seen more schemes considering the potential benefits of running on. We explore how the DB pensions environment has shifted, and what this could...

July 25, 2025
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25Jul

Sustainable funds see global recovery, driven by European investors

Global sustainable funds have made a comeback, marking a notable improvement from the outflows seen in the previous quarter, according to data published today. The latest global figures published by Morningstar show that global ESG funds recorded an estimated net $4.9bn (€4.16bn) in the second quarter of 2025. This recovery was driven by European investors, with ESG funds drawing $8.6bn of net inflows over the past three months, after redeeming $7.3bn in the prior quarter, the firm said. This rebound comes after...

July 25, 2025
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24Jul

Global pension assets reach US$61.5 trillion in 2024: report

Pension assets grew to US$61.5 trillion by the end of 2024, with a nominal growth rate of 8.5 per cent since the end of 2023, according to a new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The final tally for 2024 beat the previous record of $59.7 trillion in 2021, due to significant investment gains seen in equity holdings. However, the report found assets equivalent to 92 per cent of gross domestic product in U.S. dollars was down...

July 24, 2025
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22Jul

US. New York State Pension Bulks Up on Private Equity in $3B Spree

New York’s $273 billion state pension fund is bulking up on private equity investments, earmarking more than $1.4 billion toward the asset class in March alone, according to its monthly transaction report. The spree comes after the New York State Common Retirement Fund committed about $500 million during the previous three months combined. The allocations to private equity investments accounted for nearly half of the $3.1 billion commitments doled out by the NYSCRF in March. The largest of those was a $500 million commitment to the...

July 22, 2025
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22Jul

UK. Most pension schemes not making use of impact reports in investment decisions

Whilst most UK pension schemes are receiving impact reports, very few are reading them closely or using them to guide investment decisions, research from Pensions for Purpose has revealed. The report, commissioned by Impact Frontiers, revealed that although the UK’s impact investing market is growing fast, expanding over 10 per cent annually between 2021 and 2023, many institutional investors remain unsure how to use impact data meaningfully. According to the report, whilst most pension funds assess whether their managers produce impact...

July 22, 2025
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16Jul

PRT Market Momentum Expected to Continue

Pension risk transfers will be among the fastest-growing product lines in the life insurance sector, J.P.Morgan Chase & Co. found in its June 27 “North America Equity Research” report. According to the firm, many U.S. private sector employers that froze and/or closed their defined benefit pension plans as a benefit for employees more than a decade ago still have legacy plans, totaling $3.2 trillion in assets. Many firms have shifted their DB liabilities to insurers through PRT transactions. The PRT market...

July 16, 2025
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11Jul

The Pensions Review: final recommendations

By Jonathan Cribb, Carl Emmerson, Paul Johnson, Heidi Karjalainen & Laurence O’Brien This final report of the Pensions Review, a major project launched in April 2023 by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, in partnership with abrdn Financial Fairness Trust, examines the main risks to today’s working-age individuals in the UK pension system and sets out policy proposals primarily focused on improving outcomes for future generations of retirees. This report does further analysis and draws on the large number of reports...

July 11, 2025
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