September 2021
09Sep

Private pension plans in Latin America and sustainable finance

The private pension plan (PPP) market in Latin America is the region’s largest institutional client segment, with more than USD 900 billion in assets under management (AUM) at the end of 2020. And with projections forecasting AUM to reach USD 1.4 trillion by 2023, the PPPs are a reference point for smaller investors. Along with sovereign wealth funds (SWF), Latin America’s PPPs control a significant share of assets relative to GDP and thus can be very influential in the...

September 9, 2021
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June 2021
04Jun

Prefunded Pension Systems: Recent Developments

By Kristian Peter Niemietz From the mid-1990s to the onset of the financial crisis, prefunded pension systems, based on individual retirement savings accounts, were spreading around the world. The UK was initially a world leader in this, due to the system of contracting out, which had allowed people to opt out of part of the state pension scheme and save for their own pension instead. Since 2008, there has been a global U-turn. Private pension systems are now in retreat...

June 4, 2021
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May 2021
13May

Turkey: The Regulation On The Private Pension System Has Been Amended

Amendments regarding the Regulation on the Private Pension System ("Regulation") were published in the Official Gazette No. 31476 dated 6 May 2021. With the changes introduced by the Insurance and Private Pension Regulation and Supervision Agency ("Agency"), new regulations have been created regarding the use of electronic means of communication, the maximum number of changes allowed in a fund distribution and the purchase and sale of pension investment funds via a central electronic platform. You can read the amendments...

May 13, 2021
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April 2021
08Apr

Pension systems in east Africa a deep dive

By World Bank Group Although the populations of the countries in East Africa are still young, there is a growing awareness among policy makers that they too will face the interlocking challenges of demographics and urbanization. The lesson learned from other regions is that policies need to be put in place now to ensure that pension systems are robust and affordable. So too, pension savings should be used to fund economic growth and development. Otherwise, we risk the fate of...

April 8, 2021
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March 2021
25Mar

Public Pensions and Private Savings

By Esteban García-Miralles, Jonathan Leganza How does the provision of public pension benefits impact private savings? We answer this question in the context of a reform in Denmark that altered old-age benefit payouts through a discontinuous increase in pension eligibility ages contingent on birthdate. Using detailed administrative data and a regression discontinuity design, we identify the causal effects of the policy, leveraging our setting to study essentially the entire financial portfolio. We document responses over two distinct time horizons. First,...

March 25, 2021
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16Mar

Philippines. House panel pitches change in private retirement system

THE House Committee on Banks and Financial Intermediaries on Monday started deliberating the proposed Capital Market Development Act to establish a new private retirement and pension system in the country. However, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III quickly told the committee that while the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) lauded the intent of House Bill 8939, the costs to be shouldered by both employers and workers may not be generally welcomed, especially at a time when most people are still...

March 16, 2021
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05Mar

Vietnam gets its first private defined contribution plan

Dragon Capital VietFund Management, a Ho Chi Minh-based money management firm, has launched Vietnam's first private sector retirement savings vehicle. The defined contribution plan, with government tax incentives for employees and employers alike, offers savers three fund options — a relatively high-risk 50-50 split between equities and bonds, a 65% bond-35% stock mix and a conservative 80% bond-20% stock mix. Savings can be withdrawn tax-free upon reaching retirement age, currently 62 for men and 60 for woman. Life insurers in Vietnam have...

March 5, 2021
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February 2021
02Feb

Puerto Rico Government Plan-to-Private Plan Rollovers Allowed

On January 20, 2021, the Puerto Rico Department of the Treasury (Departamento de Hacienda, commonly known as “Hacienda”) issued Administrative Determination No. 21-01 (AD 21-01), which provides that lump-sum distributions from the retirement plan for Puerto Rico government employees are eligible for direct and indirect rollovers into Puerto Rico–qualified retirement plans maintained by private-sector employers. In practice, however, this determination is unlikely to have much of an impact on the operation of private-sector employer plans. Background Since the 1940s,...

February 2, 2021
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December 2020

02Dec

Latin American private pensions fuel cross-border demand: report

The research puts total AuM for the four administradoras de fondos de pensiones (AFP/Afore) systems at $574bn at the close of 2019. Including Brazil's complementary pension system, which also had a positive year, total regional AuM stands at $1.05trn. Flows into the AFP/Afore pension managers in Chile, Mexico, Colombia, and Peru reflect a gradual upward trend that mimics increasing formality in labor markets and higher salaries. The inflows are also among the most reliable in Latin America. While cross-border...

December 2, 2020
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November 2020

05Nov

Pension Superpowers and Financial Markets in the Sino-American Century

By M. Nicolas J. Firzli In this primer published in the Feb. 2020 issue of Private Debt Investor (PDI), Nicolas J. Firzli, World Pensions Council, looks at how institutional asset owners will come to the fore in the new geo-economic context defined by renewed Sino-American "coopetition" across ASEAN countries, Australia, Eastern Europe and the MENA area, Brexit and the resurgence of one-nation conservatism in Britain, the slow, relative decline of the European Union and the secular rise of "Pension...

November 5, 2020
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