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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03Jun

BlackRock wins monumental mandate

BlackRock will be the outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO) for $39.9 billion (£21.5 billion) of British Airways Pensions' assets. The mandate is for the investment management of Airways Pension Scheme (APS) and New Airways Pension Scheme (NAPS) which serve more than 85,000 members. Both APS and NAPs where previously managed by British Airways Pension Investment Management (BAPIML). The choice to externalise the investment management came from increased regulation, operational costs and investment complexity in the UK pension scheme industry. In addition, the schemes...

June 3, 2021
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02Jun

UK. Pensions Regulator Urges Robust Liquidity Risk Analysis

Trustees of retirement saving schemes have improved their understanding of the liquidity risks facing their programs, but they should be more robust when they analyze those dangers, a director at the pensions watchdog has warned. David Fairs, an executive director at The Pensions Regulator, said that major government and central bank intervention programs around the globe in late 2020 — such as lowering interest rates — helped to stabilize markets during the coronavirus outbreak. But interventions in the future cannot...

June 2, 2021
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May 2021
28May

UK pension asset owners join Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance

Three UK pension asset owners have signed up to the UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance. As reported by our sister publication, European Pensions, Phoenix Group, Legal & General (L&G) and Rothesay all joined alongside Germany’s largest pension fund under public law, Bayerische Versorgungskammer (BVK), and Asia- and Africa-focused insurance group, Prudential plc. The five new signatories have added a combined USD 900bn AUM to the alliance, meaning it now consists of 42 assets owners managing a combined USD 6.6trn of assets. By...

May 28, 2021
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27May

UK. Covid fails to inject interest in pensions

The pandemic has failed to spark interest in pensions according to a survey from Canada Life. It reveals that 67% of UK adults have not logged into their pension online in a year. This figure rises to 78% for those aged over 55 while 56% of adults said they haven’t received a pension statement that they read. The research also shows that 16% of those who have not logged into their pension were not interested in doing this. Fifteen percent admitted they did...

May 27, 2021
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25May

UK. Pension fee shake-up

Proposals include introducing a threshold of £100 or below which a person cannot be charged a flat fee by their pensions provider, helping limit the erosion of small pot pensions and protect savers. This will stop pensions worth £100 or less and invested in the default funds of schemes used for automatic enrolment being gradually whittled away by the fees, a situation commonly faced by people who change jobs frequently or take up short-term contracts. Minister for Pensions, Guy Opperman said: We...

May 25, 2021
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24May

UK. One in five savers have three or more pensions

One in five savers in the UK have three or more pension pots, while almost half (47 per cent) have two or more, according to research commissioned by Hargreaves Lansdown. The study, conducted by Opinium, also found that less than a quarter (24 per cent) had ever transferred a pension. Men were more likely to have transferred a pension, with 26 per cent of male respondents having done so, compared to 22 per cent of women. However, Hargreaves Lansdown noted that it...

May 24, 2021
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24May

UK. Top British companies forced to pump £200bn into pension schemes to prop them up, figures reveal

Top British companies have been forced to pump £200billion into their pension schemes to avoid a drop in funding, figures reveal. Read also UK pension asset owners join Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance Law firm Lane Clark & Peacock said the sum – equivalent to the economic output of Czechia – was needed to counter tumbling share prices and bond yields. Read also UK. One in five savers have three or more pensions It warned that firms were 'running just to stand still' and that...

May 24, 2021
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20May

UK. TPR sets three priorities in its new corporate plan

The Pension Regulator (TPR) laid out three priorities for the next three years in its new corporate plan. Implementing the Pension Schemes Act, combating scams and developing a framework to measure value for money will be the objectives of TPR over the next three years. The regulator sees these three objectives as the continuation to its response to economic uncertainty following the Covid-19 pandemic. The plan also provide information to the industry about how TPR’s work will be measured. TPR has set itself...

May 20, 2021
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19May

UK. Regulators ask industry for help on improving pension saving

The City watchdog and the Pensions Regulator have teamed up to investigate how people make decisions about their pension at key points throughout their working lives, in order to better support savers through future regulation. Read also UK. TPR sets three priorities in its new corporate plan The regulators today (May 18) launched a call for input from the pension industry on what influences consumers when saving into a pension and how they can be better supported to improve their pension...

May 19, 2021
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