September 2022
21Sep

UK. Guy Opperman ends role as Pensions Minister

Longest serving pensions minister Guy Opperman has lost his role after being in the post for the past five years. In a statement released today (September 20), Opperman said he had been relieved of his duties on September 8, but delayed the announcement to respect the period of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II. “It has been the honour of my life to serve as a government minister for the last seven years,” he said, thanking his parliamentary and civil service colleagues...

September 21, 2022
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August 2022
04Aug

Perú. Mujer pierde S/39,000 de su AFP porque otra persona hizo el retiro: “Mi cuenta está en cero”

Una madre de familia denunció que le robaron los S/ 39,000 que tenía ahorrado en su cuenta de AFP Integra durante largos años de trabajo. En la denuncia, la mujer señaló que intentó acceder a su solicitud pero se dio cuenta que alguien más había hecho el trámite. Se trata de Ruth, quien dejó pasar todos los retiros de la AFP hasta el último. Sin embargo, al verse en la necesidad del dinero, decidió sacarlo todo pero ya no tenía...

August 4, 2022
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04Aug

Sensitive data of Indian pension fund holders exposed online

A huge cache of data containing the full name, bank account number and nominee information of pension fund holders in India has surfaced online. Security researcher Bob Diachenko found two separate IP addresses storing more than 288 million records — with some 280 million records available under one IP address and about 8.4 million a part of the second IP address. Both IP addresses were publicly exposing the data to the internet but were not protected by passwords, the researcher...

August 4, 2022
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July 2022
19Jul

Africa Pension Supervisors Sign Agreement With FSD Africa

The forum brought together pension supervisors from different African countries to deliver a harmonized approach for interventions and reforms in the pensions sector across the continent. The theme of the conference was “Resilience and sustainability of the pension sector amid the crisis- The case of covid 19 pandemic”. Pension supervisors in Africa, relevant stakeholders, experts and partners in the pension industry shared experiences, discussed opportunities, challenges faced by the pension industry and new developments in the industry. The challenges include lower investment...

July 19, 2022
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18Jul

UK. Pair of ‘advisers’ jailed over £20mn pension fraud

Two “advisers” who convinced hundreds of pension holders to transfer their pots into self-invested personal pensions, and then unknowingly put them into risky investments as part of a £20mn fraud, have been jailed. Mark Kelly and Rikki Nicholls were each sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for conspiracy to defraud and money laundering at Southwark Crown Court on July 15. According to the Crown Prosecution Service, both men devised a plan to persuade pension holders, predominantly Equitable Life customers, to transfer their...

July 18, 2022
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08Jul

Measurement of ESG Performance: A Study of Indian Companies

By Preeti Sharma, Priyanka Pandey, Vijay Kumar Jain & R. C. Dangwal The present study aims to construct an inclusive, Literature-based, and statistically vetted environmental, social and corporate governance disclosure (ESGD) index, measure the item-wise, theme-wise, and factor-wise ESG performance of the top 80 Indian companies for the period 2013-2016, and examine item-wise, theme-wise and factor-wise variations in ESGD. Content analysis is used to measure the ESG disclosures of the sample companies. To test the variations, skewness, kurtosis, Levene’s, Chi-square,...

July 8, 2022
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08Jul

UK. 90% of savers would use digital pensions dashboard

Nine in 10 savers would use a digital pensions dashboard if it gave them a consolidated view of their pensions, savings and investments, according to research from The Investing and Saving Alliance and EY. The report, based in part on interviews with more than 20 senior executives from across the financial services industry, found that 90 per cent would use a dashboard if it consolidated that financial information, while 94 per cent of those currently using a dashboard would use...

July 8, 2022
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June 2022
28Jun

US. New IRS Pre-Examination Retirement Plan Compliance Program

The Internal Revenue Service recently announced a new pilot pre-examination retirement plan compliance program initiated in June. If you are a plan sponsor, do not play ostrich should you receive an IRS Pre-Examination Retirement Plan Notice. Failure to respond timely to the pre-examination notice may result in larger legal, accounting and/or audit fees and the imposition of larger sanctions. Under the new program you have 90 days to do a self-audit of the plan that is the subject of the...

June 28, 2022
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27Jun

UK. Four in five DB transfer requests raise scam warning

Four in five (83 per cent) defined benefit transfer requests have raised one or more warning flags, according to XPS Pensions Group. The firm’s scam flag index recorded May to have the highest number of scam warnings in the tracker’s history, up from a near record high in March. This is an increase of roughly 30 per cent since the beginning of 2022. XPS Pensions Group client lead, member engagement hub, Helen Cavanagh, said: “We continue to see the rate of potential...

June 27, 2022
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May 2022
26May

Swiss regulator urges pension funds to check asset manager licenses

The Swiss occupational pension supervisory commission OAK BV is urging pension institutions including pension funds to check whether external asset managers still need the approval from the Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) to manage so-called collective assets. According to the Federal Act on Financial Institutions (FinIA), the two categories of managers of collective assets include asset managers of occupational pension schemes and of collective investment schemes. OAK BV is also recommending investment foundations, vested benefit foundations (Freizügigkeitseinrichtung) that receive the benefits...

May 26, 2022
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