June 2021
15Jun

APAC pensions industry and recent trends in Japan

Pension assets across the largest pensions’ markets increased 11% in 2020, according to the Global Pensions Assets Study 2021 by Willis Towers Watson. Asia Pacific pension funds beat their peers in asset value growth in 2019, according to a report on the world’s top 300 pension funds by the Thinking Ahead Institute. Assets under management (AUM) of the top 20 pension funds grew 8.1% year-on-year in 2019, led by a 10.6% growth in the assets of Asia Pacific funds. Read...

June 15, 2021
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07Jun

France Says Controversial Pension Reform Is Key to Woo Investors

President Emmanuel Macron’s government isn’t abandoning its controversial plan to reform the French pension system, hammering home the argument that it’s key to attracting foreign investors. “We’ll keep working on the pension reform,” France’s Delegate Minister for Foreign Trade Franck Riester told Bloomberg News. “It shows we are committed to keep improving the business environment in France.” Read also French Senate passes social security draft budget, revives pensions polemic Macron came to power in 2017 with a pledge to boost growth and...

June 7, 2021
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01Jun

Germany plans pension taxation reform after election

Germany's Finance Ministry said on Monday it plans to reform the taxation of pensions after September's federal election, responding to the federal fiscal court's demand for an overhaul to avoid the double taxation of future retirement savings. "This is a proposed solution that we can imagine," State Secretary Rolf Boesinger said in Munich. He spoke after the court dismissed one couple's double taxation complaint but said future pensioners were at risk of having to pay taxes twice under existing transitional regulations. The...

June 1, 2021
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May 2021
31May

German court rejects complaints against double taxation of pensions

Germany's federal fiscal court on Monday rejected as unfounded a retired couple's objection to their retirement benefits being double taxed. The court case resulted from a 2005 change in the law that made pensions liable to tax. Until then, pensions had been essentially tax-exempt as the contributions were made from taxed salaries. Under the 2005 law, pension contribution payments gradually became essentially tax free while the taxable share of pension income was increased in a process set to conclude by 2040. The...

May 31, 2021
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17May

Australia. More risks than rewards seen in super fund reforms

Australia's government is counting on superannuation system reforms to get employees to play a greater role in maximizing their retirement savings, but industry participants fear more harm than good. Analysts warn the Your Future, Your Super reforms — outlined last October in Australia's 2021 budget proposal and set to take effect July 1 — are likely to constrain asset allocators and hurt the disengaged workers the reforms are ostensibly focused on helping. A final round of consultations, under the auspices of...

May 17, 2021
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13May

Netherlands: Postponement of pension reforms

Last year, social partners and the Dutch government reached an agreement on pension reforms in the Netherlands. The agreement’s aims - amongst others – is to abolish defined benefit schemes and to prescribe flat rates for defined contribution schemes. It was expected that the reforms would enter into force through an accelerated legislative approval process from 1 January 2022 (with a transition period from 2022 to 2026). However, since the legislation took more time than expected to be prepared,...

May 13, 2021
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04May

Pension changes for South Africa under the spotlight

Parliament’s Standing Committee on Finance has invited interested parties to submit written submissions on the Pensions Funds Amendment Bill. Introduced by the opposition Democratic Alliance, the bill aims to amend the Pension Funds Act to allow pension fund members to access a portion of their fund before retirement as a guarantee for a loan. The DA has described the draft bill as crucial in the fight for ‘people power over state power’ in South Africa. “Individuals should be free to choose, in...

May 4, 2021
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03May

Ireland. A decent pension system isn’t something we can keep putting off

By John Mercer Ireland is entering a pivotal phase of transformational pensions change that should have a positive impact on individual retirement savers. The good news is that many of the necessary foundations for change are already in place - all that remains is a commitment to prioritising the rollout. The first development has now arrived with the long overdue implementation last week of the EU’s IORP II Directive. This slightly indigestible-sounding piece of legislation will govern the private retirement savings and...

May 3, 2021
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April 2021
29Apr

Pension reform throws harsh light on Irish retirement savings

It was fitting somehow that the biggest regulatory reform of Irish pensions was announced with no fanfare. Just a press release issued without notice at the end of the working day – after 5:30pm. Pensions are a difficult sell and, at first sight, this latest landmark reform is an indicator of why. Called IORP II, the acronym is even more impenetrable than its actual title – the EU directive on the activities and supervision of institutions for occupational retirement provision. Essentially, it is...

April 29, 2021
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13Apr

Spain. The Silent Reform Of Pensions

Spain has a critical and essential employment problem: high chronic unemployment and job insecurity. Both of these are amongst the key causes of an embarrassing inequality, one of the worst in Europe. Then, to complicate the solutions, comes the problem of the high public deficit, which has increased over the last decade as an inevitable inevitability. A debt aggravated by its dependence on external financing with a bias towards instability. And at the heart of this debt is the...

April 13, 2021
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