October 2018

19Oct

Canada. ‘Some baloney’ in assertion Canada’s pension fund has highest ethical standards

OTTAWA -- "We expect the CPPIB, like other Crown corporations, to live up to the highest standards of ethics and behaviour and that is, in fact, exactly what it is doing." -- Finance Minister Bill Morneau during question period Monday in the House of Commons. The New Democrats challenged Morneau this week to weigh in on new ethical questions surrounding the investment portfolio of the arms-length Canada Pension Plan Investment Board -- which manages hundreds of billions of dollars worth...

October 19, 2018
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19Oct

South Africa. Pensions of more than 80‚000 security guards at risk

The Private Security Sector Provident Fund (PSSPF) is fighting 315 court battles against employers who are failing to comply with rules‚ putting the pensions of more than 80‚000 security guards at risk. The fund has more than 242‚600 registered members‚ of whom over 2‚500 are not complying with the rules. As a last resort‚ these companies are handed over to the fund’s attorneys who either resolve the matter by agreement or through litigation. The fund says non-compliance by employers is...

October 19, 2018
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19Oct

US. Loans could drain U.S. retirement plans by $2.5 trillion

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Americans could dig a $2.5 trillion hole in the country’s retirement system as they fail to pay back loans taken from workplace retirement plans over the next 10 years, according to a new study from Deloitte Consulting. The problem is called “leakage” - borrowing from a 401(k) plan without repaying the money or paying it back so slowly that it disrupts growth. About 40 percent of people borrow from workplace plans. Most repay their loans within five years...

October 19, 2018
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18Oct

South Africa’s Ramaphosa orders inquiry at $142 billion state pension fund

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday appointed a judicial inquiry into the 2 trillion rand ($142 billion) state pension fund, a government gazette said, following corruption allegations. The PIC is Africa’s biggest pension fund and the biggest investor in South Africa’s economy holding a large volume of bonds issued by government and state-owned firms. The gazette notice said it will investigate “persistent and continued negative reports about alleged improprieties regarding investments” by the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), which manages assets...

October 18, 2018
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18Oct

UK sitting on £20bn of unclaimed pension pots

Some 1.6 million lost pension pots worth nearly £20bn remain unclaimed, with people often losing track of their savings due to job changes or moving house, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) says, reffering to the figures as “jaw-dropping”. Research by the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI) on behalf of the ABI revealed 800,000 lost pensions worth an estimated £9.7bn. If scaled up to the whole market, it estimates there are collectively around 1.6 million pots worth £19.4bn unclaimed – the equivalent...

October 18, 2018
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18Oct

AmCham Romania warns new pension law poses risk for budgetary and macroeconomic imbalance

The American Chamber of Commerce in Romania (AmCham), which represents 430 companies, expressed concern in a statement today regarding the significant increase of the social security expenses that the pension law draft, recently approved by the Romanian Government, levies on the general consolidated budget. “We believe that is mandatory for the presentation and consultations around this draft legislation with a major budgetary impact, to include information about the financing sources of the related increases, in accordance with the provisions of...

October 18, 2018
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18Oct

Russian Pensions and the Risk of War

Putin raises the retirement age, inflaming the street. Will he find an external enemy to shore up support? In the streets of more than 80 Russian cities, thousands of men and women have turned out for antigovernment rallies in the past few months. They aren’t the usual malcontents—the middle class, intelligentsia or students—but rabotyagi, blue-collar working stiffs. Both the cause of the rallies and their political context reveal the impoverishment of Russia and the fragility of Vladimir Putin’s regime, despite...

October 18, 2018
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17Oct

Romania to Double State Pensions by 2022

Government plans to boost pension spending to $35.2 billion in four years. In a move to eliminate discrepancies that have built up between various beneficiaries of the state pension system, Romania’s government has approved a plan to increase pension-related spending to 142 billion lei ($35.2 billion) by 2022, from approximately 62 billion lei this year. The plan is expected to more than double state pensions over the next four years for the country’s 5.2 million retirees, according to Reuters. Olguta Vasilescu, Romania’s...

October 17, 2018
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17Oct

UK. FCA to require climate change disclosure for pension schemes

The FCA is consulting on rule changes requiring workplace personal pension scheme providers to disclose their ESG considerations, including climate change. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is consulting on rule changes requiring workplace personal pension scheme providers to disclose their environmental, social and governance () considerations, including climate change. In a discussion paper published this morning, the regulator said pension providers must increasingly recognise that 'climate change may reduce investment values and pension outcomes'. The FCA suggested this was particularly important for...

October 17, 2018
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17Oct

US. Has Connecticut Found A Solution To Underfunded Public Pensions?

Public pensions are underfunded. Okay. I know, I know. We’ve all seen this headline before. Ad nauseum. To add to that, nothing seems to improve. Another year goes by and state employee pensions are still underfunded. The numbers don’t lie: at the close of 2016, the cumulative pension funding deficit stood at $1.4 trillion—the 15thannual increase in pension debt since 2000. It’s not like the states aren’t trying to make up the shortfalls. In fact, contributions to pensions from state...

October 17, 2018
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