October 2019

11Oct

UK. Pensions tax relief set to cost government almost £40bn

Pensions tax relief will cost the government almost £40bn this year, up more than £2bn on the previous year, illustrating the growing cost of subsidising retirement saving. According to new statistics from HMRC, tax relief on employee pension saving is set to rise to £21.2bn while the tax giveaway on employer contributions to occupational pension schemes hit more than £18bn. The increasing cost of providing pensions tax relief follows a surge in the number of employees paying into company...

October 11, 2019
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10Oct

Ireland. New setback feared for auto-enrol pension plan

Fresh doubts have emerged about the commitment of the Government to introduce a pension scheme for almost one million private sector workers. Six out of 10 private sector workers have no private or occupational pension. The Government has committed to have an auto-enrolment pension system in place from 2022 for these workers. But no money was allocated in Budget 2020 to set up a key piece of infrastructure to deliver auto-enrolment. Plans for an auto-enrolment pension scheme have been...

October 10, 2019
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09Oct

US. White House Focuses on China Stock Limits in Retirement Fund

The Trump administration is moving ahead with discussions around possible restrictions on portfolio flows into China, with a particular focus on investments made by U.S. government retirement funds, people familiar with the internal deliberations said. Read also US. GE is freezing its pension plan for 20,000 US workers The efforts are advancing even after American officials pushed back strongly against a Bloomberg News report late last month that a range of such limits was under review. Trump officials last...

October 9, 2019
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09Oct

UK. Two in five employers concerned by ageing workforce

After surveying employers with over 500,000 staff between them, the researchers found that 44% are worried about older employees that cannot afford to stop working. This has become particularly concerning after the default retirement age was scrapped in 2011, making it increasingly necessary for companies to provide pension support. However, most defined contribution (DC) pension schemes do not have adequate levels of contributions needed to maintain a similar standard of living for many employees. “The impact of an ageing...

October 9, 2019
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07Oct

South Africa. Prescribed assets would upset the rationale for pension funds

One of the main criticisms of prescribed assets is that forcing pension funds into these investments would hurt individual savers. Besides the market distortions that prescribed assets would create, everyone understands that they would deliver below market returns. Under South Africa’s previous dalliance with prescribed assets, this impact was primarily felt by employers. This is because pension funds back then were run in a different way – they were all based on defined benefits. This meant each member did...

October 7, 2019
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04Oct

Retirement Policy and Annuity Market Equilibria: Evidence from Chile

By Gaston Illanes, Manisha Padi Retirement policy has indirect effects on its beneficiaries, through the “crowd-out” or “crowd-in” of insurance markets. We study how retirement policy in Chile, which limits the drawdown of retirement assets but otherwise does not provide or require fixed income in retirement, results in more than 60% of eligible retirees purchasing private annuities at low prices. We estimate a demand model to show that replacing this voluntary policy with partial mandatory annuitization and removing limits...

October 4, 2019
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04Oct

France. Macron seeks to placate French over pension reforms

French President Emmanuel Macron sought to ease fears over his controversial pension reform Thursday in a debate with concerned citizens over the plan that has sparked protests by train drivers, pilots, lawyers, doctors and police. Macron’s move to modernise France’s retirement system is part of an election pledge to put the country on a solid financial footing — a mission that calls for painful changes in a country where many people have seen their spending power decline. Macron’s government...

October 4, 2019
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03Oct

UK. Opperman says Pensions Bill is ‘good to go’

The minister for pensions and financial inclusion has detailed the main areas that will be covered in the upcoming Pensions Bill, which he said is “completely ready and good to go”. Speaking at a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester yesterday (October 1), organised by the Social Market Foundation and The Institute And Faculty Of Actuaries, Mr Opperman said his work on the bill was done, although he noted he was waiting for the Queen’s Speech...

October 3, 2019
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02Oct

Cuba’s works to address population ageing

The statistics speak for themselves: almost 30 percent of the Cuban population will be over 60 by the end of the next decade. There are several causes for this fact. The increase in life expectancy, which has reached 78 years for men and 82 for women, according to the basic indicators published by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in 2018, as well as low levels of sustained fertility and a demographic dynamic marked by a negative net migration...

October 2, 2019
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September 2019

24Sep

India. Government Issues Notification Announcing Amendments In Pension Rules

The families of government employees dying after serving less than seven years will get enhanced pension now with the Centre amending rules. The move is likely to benefit the widows of Central Armed Police Forces personnel. Earlier, the government employees should have rendered at least seven years of service in case of death so that the family could get the enhanced family pension at 50 per cent of the last pay drawn. Now, even with less than seven years...

September 24, 2019
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