October 2020

07Oct

Government unlikely to target South Africa’s retirement funds

The Association for Savings and Investment South Africa (ASISA) says that government is unlikely to force retirement funds to invest in specific projects through prescribed assets. Leon Campher, chief executive of ASISA, said that in recent months the various National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) partners, namely government, labour, business and community, tabled their economic recovery plans and not a single one mentioned the prescription of assets as a possible solution. “It needs to be noted that not...

October 7, 2020
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06Oct

LDI immune to COVID-19 but lack of diversification persists

Bookended by two “once in a generation” crises, the past decade was full of surprises, including a double bull market for both equities and fixed income. However, despite record-breaking returns in equity and fixed-income markets, the funded status of the pension plans of companies in the S&P 500 index, in aggregate, exhibited an L-shaped recovery. To answer why funded status did not keep up with soaring equity and bond returns, Voya Investment Management analyzed publicly available information published in...

October 6, 2020
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05Oct

More sponsors in U.K. embrace outsourcing

Multiemployer providers see influx as plan trustees move to cut costs, meet regulations Multiemployer plan providers in the U.K. are winning more defined contribution business as sponsoring employers have been more decisive about outsourcing under the pandemic-induced lockdown. The heightened interest comes as U.K. employers were already increasingly considering outsourcing plan assets to multiemployer plans, known in the U.K. as master trusts, to cut costs at a time when the government has been increasing trustee duties and decreasing support....

October 5, 2020
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02Oct

US. Do Politics Belong in Retirement Planning?

In a sharply polarized environment, Americans saving for retirement are increasingly concerned about politics — those of their financial advisers. “I’ll get a phone call from one client thinking the world is falling apart, and then another thinking it’s the best time to get into the market — in the same day,” said Robert Schmansky, founder of Clear Financial Advisors in Livonia, Mich. It has been a year of tumult, because of not only the pandemic but also protests...

October 2, 2020
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September 2020

30Sep

Mobilizing Private Finance for Nature

By Benoit Blarel, Giovanni Ruta, Olga Gavryliuk, Pauline Poisson, Fiona Stewart, Samantha Power, Benjamin Guillon, Irina Likhachova & Lisa Choux (The world Bank Group) Biodiversity and ecosystem services, or nature for short, underpin many aspects of economic activity and are deteriorating at an unprecedented level, with potentially far-reaching implications for economies worldwide. Sustained ecosystem damage can trigger regime shifts and generate systemic impacts on human well-being and economies. For example, the degradation of natural ecosystems has been associated with an increase in the probability...

September 30, 2020
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30Sep

Iceland’s pension funds sign sustainable investment declaration

Pension funds in Iceland have indicated their collective commitment to promoting sustainable development through investments, joining major players in the country’s financial sector by signing a letter of intent – alongside Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir. Read also EIOPA sets up its key priorities in the light of the pandemic In the open letter signed last week, a range of pension funds and banks declared that capital was an important driving force in shaping the economy and society as a whole,...

September 30, 2020
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29Sep

U.S. pension funds sue Allianz after $4 bln in coronavirus losses

Pension funds for truckers, teachers and subway workers have lodged lawsuits in the United States against Germany's Allianz, one of the world's top asset managers, for failing to safeguard their investments during the coronavirus market meltdown. Read also US. Trump Plan Would Restrict Retirement Plans from Sustainable Investments: Viewpoint Market panic around the virus that resulted in billions in losses earlier this year scarred many investors, but no other top-tier asset manager is facing such a large number of lawsuits...

September 29, 2020
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29Sep

Pension Fund Administrators in Nigeria and their scorecard

Despite the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected most aspects of the Nigerian economy, Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) in Nigeria performed satisfactorily, as they recorded positive returns between January and August 2020. According to the report from Pension Nigeria, no PFA had negative returns on investment (ROI) during the period under review, indicating that all PFAs for Fund I, II, III, and IV recorded positive returns. This is quite impressive, given that the pandemic had impacted most...

September 29, 2020
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24Sep

Ghana: Press highlights plight of pensioners, removal of 7,000 ‘ghost’ names from govt’s payroll

The call on the government to take liability for the shortage in the payment of lump sums to pensioners and the removal of 7,000 ‘ghost’ names from the government’s payroll are some of the trending stories in the Ghanaian press on Wednesday. The Graphic reports that the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has called on the government to take liability for the shortage in the payment of lump sums to pensioners who started retiring from this year under the new...

September 24, 2020
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24Sep

It’s too early to panic over plans for South African pensions: asset managers

The topic of South African pensions was raised again this week after the Democratic Alliance (DA) called for comment on its proposed Private Member’s Bill to amend the Pension Funds Act. The party wants to amend the Act to enable pension fund members to access a percentage of their pension fund before retirement as a guarantee for a loan. This will help alleviate financial pressure during an emergency such as the coronavirus pandemic or any other emergency similar to...

September 24, 2020
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