October 2025

Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index 2025

By Tim Jenkins, Nicola Mc Garel & Sarah Hudson The Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index benchmarks 52 retirement income systems worldwide, spotlighting both challenges and opportunities for policymakers and investors. This year’s index expands with Kuwait, Namibia, Oman, and Panama added, incorporates updated OECD data, and introduces new integrity measures for sharper insights. Systems are assessed across three pillars, adequacy, sustainability, and integrity, using more than 50 indicators. In 2025, the Netherlands, Iceland, Denmark, Singapore and Israel all achieved...

Investments, loans, insurance or pensions with a sustainable focus: what you need to know?

By European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority Through the choices we make, we all play a part in shaping our future. Are you interested in contributing to a more sustainable future? Learn more about how your financial choices can support the environment and society, and keep in mind a few tips! You may, for example, make a financial decision in a sustainable way if you put your money in an investment fund that invests in companies that recycle household waste, or in...

Pension schemes should consider societal and environmental impact

A new poll of industry professionals shows resounding support for responsible retirement investments, without forsaking financial returns  100 members of the Society of Pension Professionals were asked if funds should take into consideration the long-term implications of investments for society and our planet. 84% believed there was a need for more responsibility in terms of the vehicles being used to safeguard people’s retirements. In contrast, just 9% said there was no need to think about impact on planet or people, and...

Tier 2 pension crisis threatens retirement security for millions of Ghanaian workers

When Ghana’s stakeholders describe their Tier 2 pension situation as a “ticking time bomb,” they’re identifying something far more serious than routine performance disappointment. Over 70 percent of pension contributions sitting idle in low-yielding government instruments signals a systemic failure in the institutional architecture designed specifically to prevent this outcome. Workers across Ghana are losing millions in potential retirement savings not because markets performed poorly, but because fund managers are refusing to invest contributions where returns could actually accumulate. The...

Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index 2025 released.

The retirement systems of the Netherlands, Iceland and Denmark once again are the top three systems worldwide, according to the 2025 Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index. The same three topped Mercer’s 2024 report. For the first time in the 17-year history of the index, Singapore’s retirement system also received an A, the only country in Asia to achieve a rating at that level and the No. 5 system overall. Israel ranked fourth for the second consecutive year. A-grade countries offer...

2025 Global Retirement Index

By Dave Goodsell Norway has regained the top position in the 2025 Natixis Global Retirement Index, driven by its strong performance in health outcomes, low unemployment and high-income equality. Ireland surges to second place, thanks to improvements in inflation and an economic environment that supports retirement security. Since its launch in 2012, the Natixis Global Retirement Index has offered a comparative assessment of retirement security in 44 developed countries. The index evaluated 18 key indicators grouped into four subindexes: Finances in...

Later retirement expected in 2026 budget as Malaysia tackles economic pressures

Malaysians may be asked to retire five years later at 65 but should be spared any sharp tax rises in Friday’s budget, economists say, as Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim faces an economy hampered by an ageing population, high youth joblessness and surging living costs at the halfway point of his administration. About 8 per cent of Malaysia’s 34 million population are aged 65 and older, according to government data, firmly placing the Southeast Asian nation in the ageing nation category. At the same time,...

Aging, not smartphones, drives US’s growing loneliness crisis

In a recent study in PLoS One, researchers examined how birth cohort, time period, and age shape the time that people spend alone when social media and smartphone use are widespread. Their findings show that social isolation has increased sharply over the past two decades, accelerating since the mid-2010s. However, smartphones alone cannot explain these changes, with generational differences and aging contributing to isolation. Background The U.S. Surgeon General described isolation and loneliness as a national epidemic in 2023, pointing to online...

Pension funds should invest in venture capital for climate benefits, argues report

Large European pension funds could support the development of new sustainable and digital products by investing in venture capital, argues a report by industry networks Venture Connections, European Women in VC and Pensions for Purpose. Pension funds could “channel billions into climate tech” and are “uniquely positioned to match the long timelines of the energy transition”, Pensions for Purpose chair and founder Karen Shackleton tells Sustainable Views. If European pension funds allocated 5 per cent of existing private equity investments to...

September 2025

Dutch fund PFZW reduces BlackRock ties over clash on sustainability

Dutch pension fund PFZW has stopped investing in stock funds managed by BlackRock, in part because of concerns over the U.S. firm's voting record on sustainability issues, its lead asset manager PGGM said on Wednesday. The move comes amid a wider activist campaign in the Netherlands to push the country's large pension schemes to drop managers that have reduced support for climate change-linked resolutions at company meetings. While some companies have scaled back the importance they attach to sustainability since the...