March 2024
13Mar

Building Europe’s Green Transition and Retirement Security – Listed Real Estate’s Dual Role in Global Megatrends

As we enter 2024, the world continues to confront financial and environmental challenges on a global and societal scale. Globally, efforts to meet the Paris Agreement’s objectives are falling behind, with the green transition’s investment levels not meeting the necessary targets. This was highlighted by the World Bank’s Senior Managing Director, at the recent EU Sustainable Investment Summit, where the critical need for accelerated private investment in sustainability was underscored. The Commission identified a 1.5 trillion euro annual funding need...

March 13, 2024
News, ,
Read more...
01Mar

Lessons from the Pan-European Personal Pension product (PEPP)

By Hans van Meerten Europe has come up with legislation for a new individual pension product: the PEPP. This introduces an individual retirement account that can be rolled out in the entire European Union (EU). And can be offered to citizens worldwide. Europe – like most continents - is ageing at a rapid pace. In 2060, there will be two people at a working age for every pensioner, in comparison with four people at a working age at the present time....

March 1, 2024
Articles, Pension design, , ,
Read more...

February 2024
28Feb

EU. Sustainability and greenwashing in insurance – EIOPA publishes draft Opinion

Insurance consumers and pensions savers are increasingly interested in allocating their money to sustainability related products. So insurance and pensions providers are expanding their sustainable offerings and adapting their business models to be more sustainable. While the growth of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing can contribute to the transition to a more sustainable economy, greenwashing risk exists. Greenwashing is the practice of misrepresenting sustainability-related features of investment products. The issue has received renewed attention at European level, with EIOPA recently...

February 28, 2024
News, ,
Read more...
16Feb

Aging Europe

By Eurostat In this interactive report, Eurostat presents us with the most relevant statistics on the aging population of the European Union, covering aspects such as working life, living conditions, access to health and income. All these statistics are accessible at the regional level and by country in the European Union. Get the report here

February 16, 2024
Aging, Books, Books, Reports, , , ,
Read more...

January 2024
09Jan

The EU Loses About a Million Workers Per Year Due to Aging. Migration Official Urges Legal Options

The European Union’s top official for migration said Monday that member states will have to confront tough policy challenges — even in the current election year – to cope with the continent’s aging population. Ylva Johansson, the EU home affairs commissioner, said there was a pressing need to shift away from illegal migration and find more legitimate alternatives. “For demographic reasons, the population of working age in the EU will decrease by 1 million per year. It is decreasing by 1 million per...

January 9, 2024
News, ,
Read more...

December 2023
14Dec

New EU gig worker rules will decide who should get benefits for full-time workers

In a bid to improve working conditions for people delivering food and offering rides through smartphone apps, the European Union on Wednesday gave temporary approval to rules that stipulate that Who should get the benefits of full-time employees and restrict online avenues? Platforms use algorithms to manage their employees. The European Parliament and the 27 EU member states agreed on a platform worker directive that took years to create. It aims to boost protections and benefits for the growing number...

December 14, 2023
News, ,
Read more...

November 2023
22Nov

EIOPA chair pushes for action on pension dashboard, auto-enrolment, PEPP

The chair of the European pensions supervisory authority has called for “bravery” to make a pensions dashboard at European level a reality. In late 2021, EIOPA delivered its advice to the European Commission on developing pension tracking services and a dashboard to strengthen the monitoring of pension developments in EU Member States. Speaking at EIOPA’s annual conference today, Petra Hielkema said the advice was “sitting there, in Brussels”. “It’s difficult, because if you really want a full dashboard you need the labour and social...

November 22, 2023
News, ,
Read more...

October 2023
27Oct

From PEPP to Corona: European Aspects of the Dutch Pension System

By Hans van Meerten In this contribution, I will address some salient points in the Dutch and European pension landscape. For instance, the state of affairs anno 2023 regarding the WTP and the 'EU Pension Union' (EPU) will be addressed. What developments are there and do they actually bring the signalled EPU (in 2015) closer or further away? In doing so, I would like to address two topics specifically: the internal market for pensions and developments regarding the Corona pandemic,...

October 27, 2023
Articles, Pension design, ,
Read more...

September 2023
27Sep

Comparing ESG regulation globally remains elusive – report

Comparing global regulatory demands on ESG funds will continue to be elusive, according to a regulatory update from ISS ESG published Sept. 21. Experts at the Institutional Shareholder Services' sustainable investment arm reviewed current and proposed regulations in the European Union, U.K., U.S., Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan, and surmised "that navigating the emerging regimes will remain a challenge for the foreseeable future," the 2023 Global Regulatory Update said. It noted that two major sustainability reporting standards were finalized in 2023:...

September 27, 2023
News, , , , , ,
Read more...
06Sep

Pension Funds Want ESG Ratings ‘Oligopoly’ Broken by EU

Europe’s pensions industry wants regulators to end the dominance of some ESG ratings firms, amid concerns that the existing market dynamic is hurting competition and driving up prices. The absence to date of regulatory controls has enabled the “dominance of major players,” which has “negatively impacted smaller entities,” PensionsEurope said in a hearing response to the European Commission. That’s “led to higher prices, barriers to entry, reduced market competition and limited innovation,” it said. The EU’s executive arm proposed a major crackdown of the...

September 6, 2023
News, ,
Read more...